It Ain't Me, Babe
by Brunette
Summary: [ALTA AU, 'cause that's a thing now.] In an effort to cover her pregnancy, Jemima Willoughby marries rich oil tycoon David Daniels and follows him back to his Texas ranch. Desperate to start anew and keep the true paternity of her child a secret, she throws herself into the role of wife and mother in a strange place, with strange people. But hidden things can't stay hidden forever.
1. someone to open each and every door

_**Author's Note. **So maybe it's weird to just keeping beating the horse that is this universe, but I've really enjoyed Jemima, I've been looking for an opportunity to write more of the Americans, and I'm kind of into this whole secret "you are NOT the father" situation going on between Jemima and Daniels. So this is a little 5-part segue from _Amour Fou_. Each part is kind of a short story unto itself, so they're each pretty long, and they cover a span of 25 years, I think. That's what I'm planning right now. Enjoy!_

**_Disclaimer. _**_The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios. The title and chapter titles are taken from the song "It Ain't Me, Babe" by Johnny Cash (because what could be more fitting than a Johnny Cash song for the Americans?), originally written by Bob Dylan. The ranch and setting take a heavy cue from the film _Giant_. As far as I know, Blackbird, Texas is a town of my own invention. PROVE ME WRONG, GOOGLE MAPS._

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**IT AIN'T ME, BABE**

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**someone to open each and every door.**

_The Daniels' Ranch: Blackbird, Texas, 1925_

"Oh, darling, it's simply marvelous!"

_Marvelous_. The word had been perpetually on Jemima's lips, lacuqered on like the lipstick and false smile she'd worn for longer than she could recall at this point. Marvelous. It wasn't marvelous. It was a Victorian monstrosity rising up out of the dust like a mirage, and a sickened feeling churned in her stomach just to look at it.

She was fairly certain it wasn't just the morning sickness.

_More like all day sickness,_ she thought much too frequently to herself, her teeth clenching irritably against her nausea. Leave it to Beni. She hadn't even noticed she was pregnant with Lionel until her clothes started getting tight; she hadn't felt remotely different and even sort of enjoyed the experience, despite her distorted body. She liked feeling him move...but it was too early to feel this child move. It was too early for everything except nausea and exhaustion and soreness.

Leave it to Beni. Leave it to Beni's child to make her feel so dreadful.

But she smiled even though her face was green, and willfully ignored the dismal feelings creeping inside her as they pulled the auto up to the front of the house. The big, lonely, house...it reminded her of a proud old hermit, stooping in the wind. Jemima could handle many things - perhaps about anything - but she'd simply die of boredom out here.

"But darling, don't we have any neighbors? Any at all?"

She fought to keep her face from falling as Daniels listed off this family that lived five miles that way and another family that lived seven the other, and she slipped out a sigh. Her arm tightened around Lionel, and she shielded his face from the dusty wind.

It wasn't so unlike the desert out here, but living out in the midst of nothing was much more depressing than living in Cairo. If she was going to live in the dust, she might as well have people living with her. People made anything bearable.

Daniels helped her out of the car and took Lionel from her arms, letting out a whistle that brought a couple shepherd dogs loping from somewhere around back. He leaned down and greeted the dogs affectionately, and Lionel giggled and reached for them.

Jemima smiled genuinely now.

Maybe it wasn't the pregnancy that was making her so sick. Maybe it was herself.

David Daniels was so good - so very good - to Lionel. He'd been happy to have the baby on their honeymoon, even when Jemima's nursemaid refused to follow them out of Egypt and on the winding road to Texas. She wanted to stay in a Muslim country, she said. And Jemima had sighed tersely, but let her on her way. She wanted to shake the woman; must everyone abandon her son? There was no one for him in the world but Jemima now.

But she was wrong about that. Daniels was more than happy to be there for him. More than happy. He was tickled pink with Lionel, and it made Jemima's heart swell, even as it made her stomach clench guiltily. He was going to be such a good father. He was already good to Lionel. He was going to make such a good, good father to a child that wasn't even his.

It swept over her again - the overwhelming guilt - and she grasped onto the car to maintain her balance. She could feel him looking at her, cautious and worried the way first-time fathers do. The way Ollie used to.

Would Beni have ever looked at her that way?

Had he looked at Evelyn that way, for the short time she'd been pregnant?

Jemima took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and pushed thoughts of him out of her head. She didn't want to wonder about those things. She didn't want to think about those things. She wasn't there anymore.

She was in Texas. She was David Daniels' wife. She was having a child.

Beni Gabor's child.

A wave of nausea overtook her again, and she doubled over for a moment. She felt David's hand on her shoulder.

"Let's get you inside. It's too damn hot for this."

She nodded weakly and let him lead her inside. She was too tired and sick to pay any attention to the decor, but later she would notice with a subdued chuckle how terribly, unabashedly Western the whole place was, as if she'd stepped onto the set of a play about Americans. She was surrounded by animal heads and paintings of cowboys, and a cowhide on the floor. It felt strangely dark despite the wide windows and the curtains pulled back; she realized later that was because everything was dark and maroon and leather. The house had a distinct feeling of heaviness, as if the dark furniture might root the house to the ground there in the midst of the insufferable wind.

Daniels yelled for some water, and a moment later a black maid brought an icy cup, already dripping with perspiration in the lukewarm room. Jemima sipped at it and listened to the fans whir desperately overhead.

She was used to the heat. Texas wasn't so different from Egypt in that regard. But the darkness of the room made her feel close and uncomfortable despite the massiveness of the parlor. She closed her eyes and sucked in the cool, calming water.

"Where's Naomi?"

As if on cue, before the maid could even finish telling him that his sister had gone out for a ride, Naomi Daniels burst through the front door. She had a bright, congenially pretty face and was covered from the top of her had down to her boots in dust. She wore a blouse and a pair of men's trousers that made Jemima wonder how she ever managed to find a pair to suit her tough little frame. She pulled a floppy-brimmed hat from her head and wiped away her sweat with the sleeve of her blouse. Her dark hair hung in a dirty and wind-ratted braid down her back.

Daniels handed Lionel off to Jemima before taking his sister in a tight hug. She giggled about getting his fresh suit all dirty, and her gaze turned curiously to her new sister-in-law.

"Is this her?" she asked in a cheery drawl that was simultaneously energetic and comfortable.

"It certainly is," Jemima said with a polite smile.

Naomi looked her over with eyes as sharp and blue as her brother's. "Well, aren't you even prettier than he said! I just love your hair. I think bobs are so glamorous on the right face, and honey, you got the face for it."

"Thank you. That's so kind of you to say."

"Me, I think I'd look like a boy," said Naomi in her men's trousers.

Jemima shook her head. "Oh, you wouldn't look like a boy. Some do, but you wouldn't."

"Why, you're just as sweet as they come!" she said. Her brow furrowed suddenly. "You know you got one brown eye and the other blue?"

Jemima chuckled. "Yes, I noticed."

"Well, 'a course you did. I just mean I noticed it just now." Her gaze turned to the baby in her lap, and a bright, wide smile lit up her face. "And who is this?"

"This is my son Lionel."

Naomi grinned, her hands hovering just above him. "Well ain't you just a honey? Ohh, I wanna hold him so bad, but I can't right now. But you just wait there, Lionel. I'm gonna get cleaned up and there'll be no gettin' rid 'a me." Her gaze darted up to Jemima again. "Couldn't look more like you if he tried."

But Jemima shook his head. "That's only because you've never seen his father. After we get unpacked, I'll dig out a picture and show you. They might as well have been twins."

Naomi raised her eyebrows incredulously, smiling at Lionel again. "I don't know about that. He looks like his mama's boy to me."

"He's quickly becoming David's boy, I'm afraid."

Naomi nodded her head, flashing a wink at her brother. "Well 'a course he is. Dave always was good with kids. I'm awful pleased he's gonna be a daddy." She glanced up at Jemima seriously. "And you oughtta be, too. Don't pay no attention to whatever ugly thing folks say about it. Ya'll made a mistake, and you done the right thing gettin' married. And it's every bit a blessing it is for anybody else. You got nothin' to be ashamed of."

Jemima shifted her weight uncomfortably, her gaze fleeing to the back of Lionel's chubby little neck. She was barely able to murmur something like "thank you." She heard her sister-in-law let out a sigh and straighten, glancing at David again.

"Well, you know I can't abide rudeness, but I might just die if I have to sit another minute in a room with a baby I can't hold, so I'm gonna go clean up."

Daniels let out a snort. "What'd you go for a ride for when you knew we was comin'?"

Naomi put her hands on her hips and huffed a sigh, but her eyes were smiling. "Dave, when have you ever known me to pass up a good mornin' to ride?"

Jemima smiled and put in, "Me too."

Her husband turned and stared at her in confusion. "You like to ride?"

"Of course I do."

"I tried once, I tried a million times to get you and Oliver out to ride with me."

Jemima chuckled. "Well, darling, that's because Ollie was deathly afraid of horses. But of course he didn't want anyone to _know_ he was afraid of them, so I always pretended like it was me. But I adore them."

Daniels shook his head in perplexity. "Who's afraid of horses?"

She gave him an easy shrug. "Ollie, apparently. I haven't any idea why. When I asked him about it, he told me 'an auto has an off switch.' No one was so glad for the invention of the auto as Ollie."

But Daniels' eyes remained wide and befuddled. "I don't get how he made it not ridin' a horse. That's all there was most of his life."

Jemima held up her hands innocently. "Darling, I don't know how he managed. Perhaps he always took carriages. I just know you couldn't pay the man to get on a horse."

Naomi let out a loud sigh, drawing both of their attention. With a polite smile, she told them she was going off to take her bath now. Her boots rang against the hardwood floor with every stride she took, across the room and on up the stairs. Jemima smiled quietly after her, at last turning her attention back to Daniels.

"She's lovely," she told him. "She lives here with you?"

Daniels nodded. "Only til June, though. You know she's marryin' Bernard."

Jemima's smile flattened a little, but she nodded her head. It was difficult to imagine quiet, spectacled Bernard Burns marrying a woman who wore trousers, but she supposed stranger things had happened. Most people probably thought David Daniels bringing home an English bride was much more of an oddity.

"How're you feelin'?" he asked after a moment.

She shrugged stiffly. "Alright, I suppose. Just a bit tired."

"You wanna go rest up some before supper?"

She started to refuse, but instantly found the notion silly. She'd barely nodded her head and Daniels was waving the maid over.

"Edie, take Lionel in the kitchen and fix 'im a bottle or somethin'."

Jemima reluctantly handed her son off to the maid. She watched nervously as she whisked him out of the room cooing little meaningless words to him all the time.

"He'll be fine," Daniels told her briskly. "Edie's ma was my mammy. Now she'll be Lionel's and our babies'."

Jemima let out a little sigh. "He was so very attached to his nursemaid in Egypt..."

Daniels snorted dismissively. "Ah, hell. He's a baby. He probably don't even remember her."

"Perhaps not."

His knees popped as he stood up out of his seat and offered her his hand. He told her to come on, and she did. She took his hand and let him lead her out of the room and up the stairs to the master bedroom. In comparison to the living room below, it was considerably cheerier, with a big, colorful quilt spread over the bed and white walls. She smiled gratefully at the invitingly soft pillows, and ran a hand through her hair.

She felt his hand suddenly tighten on hers, and she turned and looked into his watching eyes.

"So you ride horses," he said, an amused smirk on his face.

Jemima smiled. "Well, yes, but not the way you do, darling. There probably isn't an English saddle for fifty miles, is there?"

Daniels' mouth twisted thoughtfully, and he glanced at the ceiling. "We don't have one. Somebody else might..." He shrugged. "You could learn Western. It's easy enough."

"I don't know that I'd like riding with a horn between my legs."

He snickered and pulled her into his arms. "I don't know about that. You seem to like it just fine."

She swatted his arm, but a devilish smile lurked in the corner of her mouth. "You wicked thing!"

He stopped her with a kiss, and even though she was exhausted from the hot, dusty ride from the train station - even though her days had become a constant battle with nausea and guilt - she gave into his hands and the urgency of his kiss. She gasped back a breath and focused on the touch of his hands in an effort to drown out the strange and dirty feeling that crept within her.

Just as horrible as the guilt of lying to David was the griminess of knowing she was making love to one man while carrying the child of another. She felt Beni there within her - perpetually within her - even though she couldn't yet feel the first fluttery movements of life. He was there, and even if he was a dreadful man (and she knew he was) she couldn't help but feel that he was the one who belonged there. It was his child, and David Daniels was the intruder.

How had she done such a thing?

But she'd done so many things. So very many ill-intentioned things. She'd married Oliver even though the thought of his aged, veiny hands on her body made her ill. But then she married him, and he was so kind and loving to her. And she stopped worrying over his lined face and white hair and sagging frame. She stopped worrying, because he was good.

And David - he was good, too. She hadn't known at the time; she was just desperate to hide the pregnancy, and she knew he had money. She supposed she'd lucked out with both Oliver and David; as recklessly as she'd thrown herself into their beds, she might have found herself in much messier situations than she had, with much messier men.

Men like Beni Gabor.

She couldn't always be lucky. And perhaps she should be grateful that she'd only managed to snag one Beni and not three of him. Beni was cruel and selfish and nerve-gratingly whiny, but he'd fascinated her. He'd been so very fascinating, with his sordid past and funny accent. And after about a year of sleeping with a man whose body sometimes failed him, Beni seemed relentlessly vigorous. There were no weary attempts and embarrassed apologies. There was only his demanding hands and urgent, breathless kisses. And she liked the way he'd shoved her about and did as he pleased. She liked that he didn't treat her so delicately as Oliver did, like at any moment she might break. Ollie was the one who'd been on the verge of breaking, not her.

She realized that now. Ollie was being cautious with his own body, not with hers. Beni wasn't cautious with either of their bodies, and sometimes he'd hurt her; up against a wall or on the floor, he'd bruise her shoulders and back and hips. Sometimes he'd hurt himself. She once bit down so hard on his arm, it festered into a round purple-and-yellow bruise, and he'd had to tell Evelyn he'd gotten it from a man he was interrogating. Those were the sort of things that happened with Beni. She'd hated and liked it at the same time. She hated and liked him at the same time.

David was neither of those things. He was an urgent, passionate person by nature, but he cared about whether he hurt her or not. He wanted her and he took her and he didn't waste any time. He didn't ask for permission. But he touched her face and held her. And she didn't have bruises anymore. If her body trembled afterwards, it was from breathless enjoyment, not because she was sore.

Beni really _didn't_ hurt her most of the time.

But she was acutely aware, from those times that he did, how very little she meant to him. She hadn't mattered to him - not at all. At least not until he figured out she was sleeping with David Daniels. _Then_ she mattered. Because Beni Gabor didn't like sharing his things.

Even when they first started fooling around - when it was nothing but harmless fun, as far as David knew - she'd never gotten the impression that she didn't matter. He might not have married her if she was pregnant. He probably wouldn't have, even. But she could tell that she mattered to him. As someone he was sleeping with. As a fellow member of the human race. She mattered. But Beni didn't have that kind of regard. Not for her, and not for anyone else.

Not for their child.

_It's every bit a blessing it is for anybody else,_ Naomi had said. A blessing for whom? For Jemima of course, now that she had someone to call its father. And a blessing for Lionel and even the child, having a strong and capable man in their lives. But it wasn't any blessing for David, and Jemima knew. She knew all the time that it was nothing but a mean little jabbing joke. Beni was there inside her, snickering to himself. _You don't have a child, Daniels. You let an outrageous slut like Jemima Willoughby pull the wool over your eyes._

She wasn't Jemima Willoughby anymore. That time was done. Exhaustively trying to impress _those people_ was a thing of the past. She'd belonged to that world and grown up in it, but she'd properly shamed herself there, and she was happy to be rid of it. She was in America, the land of new money and vibrant dreams. She was surrounded by people with no breeding who wouldn't even notice if she lost some of hers, as well.

That's where she found herself, after David kissed her forehead and told her to take a nap while he dressed. That's where she found herself after spending the warm afternoon dozing: amongst these people who would make her in-laws' mouths twitch. She sat at a table and laughed because they were laughing, giddy with a few beers and their colorful words and rumbling, knee-slapping merriment.

"So what is it? A girl or a boy?" Naomi asked after a roar had died down.

Jemima stole a coquettish glance at David. "Now, darling, you're liable to start a war."

More laughter. More beer.

"I take it ya'll don't exactly agree?" Henderson asked, working a tun of chewing tobacco out of his pocket.

Jemima grinned. "Well,_ I_ think it's a girl, but David isn't a bit pleased by the notion - "

"Dave!" Naomi exclaimed good-naturedly.

He held up his hands, shooting his wife a joking and scolding eye. "Now that's not what's gettin' me, and you know it. You tell 'em the whole truth about it."

Jemima crossed her arms over her chest primly. "Why, that_ is_ the whole truth, darling."

"It ain't!" he retorted, turning animatedly to his friends and sister. "It's not that she _thinks_ it's a girl, it's that she _wants_ it to be a girl. And I says to her, 'Honey, it ain't fair to go wishin' for a girl. Every man on earth's entitled to a firstborn son.'"

Naomi blew a raspberry. "Oh, horse shit, David Daniels."

He turned and gazed at her with wild eyes. "Beg your pardon?"

"I said that's horse shit," she told him without batting an eye. "Jem's already got a son. She got a right to want a daughter."

"Well, _okay,_ but I don't got a son _or_ a daughter, and since it's the first one, I want it to be a boy."

Naomi snorted, turning her attention to Jemima. "You been real sick?"

She nodded her head.

"Then it's a girl," Naomi said, leaning back in her chair with an air of finality. "Havin' a girl makes you sick. Don't everybody know."

David wagged a finger at her, his face tightening with irritation. "You stop tryin' to get on my nerves about it."

Her eyes widened. "Honey, it's the gospel truth."

"I said stop tryin' to get on my nerves."

"Well, fine. But I didn't make the rules. You eat like a fieldhand with boys and girls make you sick. Ask anybody."

_"Naomi - "_

She held up her hands in surrender. "Okay, Dave. Ah'right."

Her fiance Mr. Burns eyed Daniels cautiously before clearing his throat and changing the subject. "So have you picked out the names?"

Jemima glanced at her husband, pinning back an amused smile. "Mr. Burns, if you were trying to find a more diplomatic topic, you have utterly failed."

Naomi leaned forward in interest. "So what's the spat about the names, then?"

David looked at Jemima, and she looked back at him and raised her eyebrows. He offered her the floor with a wave of his hand, and she turned her glittering eyes and bright smile around the table.

"Well, darlings, if it's a boy - not that it matters, of course, since it's a _girl_ - "

David shot her a little glare that she returned with an infectious smile, and despite his irritation, his expression softened a little. All the while, Naomi and Burns and Henderson laughed.

"But if it's a boy, I want to name him Sebastian - "

Henderson couldn't hold back a laugh, and Naomi's shoulders shook, even as she was trying to manage, "Well, I reckon it's...you know..."

"Queer as a three-dollar bill?" Daniels supplied readily.

Jemima swatted his arm. Naomi giggled, but said, "I was goin' to say refined."

"Thank you!" Jemima said triumphantly. "I think so, as well. But David says you can't name an American Sebastian. So I said to him, 'Darling, what do you name an American?' And he said to me, 'Cole.'"

Henderson nodded his head. "I like Cole."

Jemima stared at him. "You do? You like Cole?"

"It's solid, you know. Strong. Manly."

Jemima let out an exasperated sigh. "And there I thought he was kidding me. I said, 'Darling, you burn coal. Let's give our child a name.'"

"What if it's a girl?" Naomi asked, adding with a ribbing smile, "Since it is, anyways."

David rolled his eyes.

"Oh, darling, you must hear this," Jemima said, sitting up in her seat and catching every listening face in her strange gaze. "He said to me, 'I want to name it after my mother if it's a girl.' And I said to him, 'Darling, that's a marvelous idea. What's your mother's name?' And he tells me, 'Betsy.' And I say, 'Oh, that's just lovely. I adore Elizabeth.'"

Naomi chuckled, her eyes dancing in amusement. "Ma's name wasn't Elizabeth. Just Betsy."

Jemima giggled. "Yes! That's what he said to me! Here I am thinking, 'By God, Elizabeth. We have it.' We'd been arguing and arguing over silly boys' names, and the first girl name he says, I positively love. I think, 'Elizabeth, what a good strong English name.' And he said to me, 'No. It's just Betsy.' Just Betsy! Darling, who names a child_ just_ Betsy?"

Naomi glanced at her brother and shrugged. "Well, Gram and Gramps, I guess."

Jemima let out a sigh, glancing up at them sheepishly. "I suppose this would be a point of cultural confusion. No one in England would name a child just Betsy."

The Americans around her shrugged their shoulders and sipped at their drinks, and for an uncomfortable moment, it was quiet. Jemima got the distinct feeling that she'd said something wrong, and she hated that, since they'd been having such a good time a moment ago. She gave them a thin smile and took a big gulp of beer.

She had her own reasons for hoping it was a girl. For one thing, she was relieved by the idea that girls almost always changed their last name at some point. What difference did it make if she had her father's name or not? She'd get married and that would be all of it. But a son was tasked with carrying on a name, spreading it out like a blanket over his wife and sons. A man's name was an eternal thing, while a girl's was fickle. Didn't she know it as well as anyone? In less than twenty-two years, she'd been a Hartley, a Willoughby, and now a Daniels. But a man was his own until the day he died. He was his own, and his father's own. She felt sick and uneasy at the thought of Beni's child being entrusted with the Daniels name. He wasn't a Daniels. She didn't want to lie and tell him he _was_ a Daniels. A daughter would be her own - her very own - and it wouldn't matter at all if she was a Gabor or Daniels or anything else. She'd get married and change her name and that would be the end of it. She'd belong to Jemima and it simply wouldn't matter.

Jemima supposed she could lie to a girl about being a Daniels. It didn't matter. It didn't matter at all. It never mattered what a woman was. She was a means to a family. She wasn't a family herself.

So she hoped and prayed, as nights turned into weeks. She hoped that Naomi was right about morning sickness. She compared every last detail of this pregnancy to Lionel's. _It's a girl_, she told herself. _I can feel it. It's a girl. _And she tried not to fret. It would be a girl and she would belong to Jemima. She would be all Jemima's. And then after she had Beni Gabor's daughter, she could set to having as many sons as David Daniels thought he required. She prayed - how she prayed - _God, make all the rest boys, but please, please make this one a girl._

As the months dragged on into fall, and into winter, she held her breath and started praying different prayers. _Please let her come late, God. Please. _She knew when to expect Beni's child. And she knew that was two or three weeks earlier than she ought to expect David's. _Please let her come late._

Time dragged past her final week. It dragged past a second, too. And then she stopped caring whether the baby came on time or not. Her back ached and her hips were sore. _Just come already,_ she'd tell her belly. _I don't care when you come anymore. I just can't take you being inside me any longer._

It happened on Christmas. And even though she was at once relieved to feel the gush of water between her legs, she started weeping. _I'm going to miss Christmas with Lionel!_ she'd cried. _He'll never forgive me. I know he won't..._

It happened on Christmas. Under ether and twilight. It was late on Christmas evening when she woke up and noticed a white-dressed nurse in her room. She squinted through bleary eyes.

"Where is she?" Jemima asked.

The nurse frowned. "Where's who, honey?"

"The baby. Where is she?"

The nurse left and came back with a warm little bundle, and handed him over.

Him. It was a boy.

Jemima stared blankly into his round, puckered face. He frowned in his sleep and she held him while he breathed, and breathed, and breathed.

"Big boy," the nurse had said, giving her a proud nudge. "I can't believe a little thing like you carried a ten pound baby."

Jemima scoffed quietly. Beni Gabor's son, a ten pound baby. Well, of course he was. He was probably two weeks late; maybe more. But just the same. She stared at his face and wondered if they brought her the wrong baby. Surely she and Beni hadn't made a ten pound baby. Surely not...

"Was your first this big?"

Jemima blinked, glancing up at the nurse in confusion. "He was early..."

Her eyes wandered back to the baby in her arms again. She stared hard into his little face, barely aware of the nurse twittering next to her in a warm drawl.

"Well, this one's a nice, big healthy boy. You'll be glad for it, too. He'll sleep so sound, you won't even notice you had a baby. And he's just handsome as can be. Got the biggest set 'a blue eyes I ever seen in my life. They're big and sad, you'll just never put him down - 'course you'll have to, seein' as how he's already ten pounds..."

Jemima nodded her head numbly. She stared at the baby. She stared at him and waited for his eyes to open, and some point later - after the nurse left to "let ya'll get acquainted" - he did. He opened his eyes, and Jemima's breath caught in the back of her throat. They hadn't brought her the wrong baby. Not at all.

She knew the eyes staring back at her. She knew the brow and ears, and the shape of th head. She knew him already.

"Not to worry, darling," she told that reborn image of a Hungarian thief. "I won't let him name you Cole."


	2. i'll only let you down

**_Disclaimer. _**_The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios. The title and chapter titles are taken from the song "It Ain't Me, Babe" by Johnny Cash (because what could be more fitting than a Johnny Cash song for the Americans?), originally written by Bob Dylan. The ranch and setting take a heavy cue from the film _Giant_. As far as I know, Blackbird, Texas is a town of my own invention. _

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**IT AIN'T ME, BABE**

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**i'll only let you down.**

_Hangman's Creek: Blackbird, Texas, 1932_

"Benjamin Hartley Daniels, I baptize thee in the name 'a the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

Jemima felt Naomi elbow her in the arm, and let out a sigh. Her sister-in-law leaned close and whispered in her ear, "See. He's baptized now."

Jemima's mouth twitched tersely. "I said I'd never forgive David for not letting me baptize him as a baby, and I never will."

She heard Naomi huff a little breath and turn her attention back to the scene at hand. Jemima's son stood there dripping in the stinking, knee-high waters of Hangman's Creek. A drought had come on in early May, and it was now the dead of July. She was surprised there was any water left to baptize him in. With an impatient sigh, she slipped her hand into the pocket of her skirt and found a handkerchief to dab delicately over her forehead and neck. Her lip wrinkled in disgust at a mosquito buzzing angrily around her face. She gave it a good swat, and was about to tell Naomi that it was much too hot for this sort of nonsense. She would have much rather baptized Benjamin in a church, at a font, when he was tiny and new. Not out here in a creek among the marsh and the flies. This business of waiting until a person was "reborn of the Spirit" before giving them a proper baptism was dreadfully annoying to Jemima. What was the point of bringing her family's beautiful lace baptismal gown all the way from Egypt if David wasn't even going to let her baptize the children when it still fit?

She was so consumed by her own irritation that she turned just a little too fiercely when a gentle hand touched her arm on the other side. The older woman jumped back in surprise, her gaze startled and apologetic.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. Jemima forced a smile and shook her head.

"Oh, no, I'm the one who should be sorry. Excuse me."

The lady offered her a nervous smile. "It's just we was wonderin' - that's your son that was baptized just now."

Jemima nodded. "Yes. That's my Benji."

"We was wonderin' - what's his middle name again?"

"Hartley," she told her. "It's my maiden name. We named him after my uncle, you see - Benjamin Hartley - because he looks so very much like him."

The older woman smiled and nodded her head, and turned back to share this with her friend. Jemima glanced down at her shoes in the dirt, staring dismally at the thin layer of dust coating her cream heels. Her hand twitched longingly next to her purse for a cigarette, but she didn't dare have one. Not at a river baptism among holy rollers. And certainly not out here in a drought.

Jemima_ did_ have an Uncle Benjamin Hartley, but the assertion that Benji looked anything like him was dubious at best. It was an easy lie to tell around here; no one knew her family, and conveniently, she didn't have any pictures of her uncle. She hadn't seen her own family since Benjamin was a baby whose chubby features could be credited to practically anyone if she pretended to be convinced enough. People were inclined to agree with new mothers, and Tamsin had shrugged in her retreating way and said, "Yes, I suppose he does. Perhaps he looked more like him when he was newborn, though." And Jemima had emphatically proclaimed that he had.

Benjamin had never looked like anyone except Beni Gabor. He couldn't look more like the man if it was possible for Beni to impregnate himself.

Oh, every now and then he might have an expression or stand in such a way that she saw a glimmer of her father. And one or two times, one of the ladies at church had remarked that he looked like her. But that hadn't happened since Benji was very young. When he was toddler, he went through a brief phase where Jemima thought he might actually start too look a bit like her, but that time passed. He was seven now, and all skinny limbs and round, desperate eyes.

David gave him anything he wanted, and he still had desperate eyes.

He scurried up to her now, dripping in his white robe, swatting at the bugs enticed by his scummy skin. She let out a breath and smiled at him, even though he was a mess.

"Did you see, Ma?"

She nodded her head and pushed the thin, wet hair out of his eyes. He looked about in confusion.

"Where's Dad and Lionel?"

Jemima bit her lip and stood up on the balls of her feet, scanning the crowd for their familiar forms.

"I saw Betsy down at the bank," he added.

"I don't know where they went," she said at last. "I thought they were standing with Mr. Henderson a moment ago..."

Benji frowned thoughtfully, and she touched the top of his wet head. "Go fetch your sister, and we'll find them."

He bobbled his head and snuck off, weaving his way through the crowd. He had a way of quietly creeping everywhere that must have been inherited from his father, because Jemima was certain he had no reason to be such a little sneak. Unlike Beni, Benjamin had never missed a meal in his life, and he'd never had any cause to take anything from anybody, either. She would have thought such things as walking were learned; and certainly, Lionel strutted around in an endearing mimick of David's gait. She supposed Benjamin mimicked David in any number of ways, too. Maybe she just couldn't see it, because every thing the boy did - from laughing and smiling to chewing his food - reminded her of Beni.

She thought she'd forget about him out here in Texas. She thought his face would fade from her memory, and she'd only think about him now and then in passing, when Benji did something particularly like him. She figured between a charming drawl and cowboy boots, Benjamin would take on enough of David's mannerisms that he'd trick her (and everyone else) into "looking" like a Daniels. But that hadn't happened.

She was forced to think of Beni Gabor, in one way or another, every day.

The guilt had subsided to a constant, quiet, dull throb in the back of her head. She couldn't live in a state of crippling regret, after all. And it had been seven years. Everything dulled to an ache after a while. Her guilt was no different. Sometimes it would rise up from somewhere and take hold of her again; clench her in its cruel, cold grip and paralyze her. Sometimes she'd watch a sweet moment between David and Benjamin grow bitter before her very eyes. But most days, she'd come to shoulder the burden of regret like her purse: a light but necessary discomfort she could move around but never leave behind.

"Where'd he go?"

Jemima startled at the sound of her husband's voice. She didn't quite smile at him. She was still upset about the baptism.

"There you are," she said coolly. "He's fetching Betsy."

David nodded his head and pulled off his hat, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. "Phew, it's a hot one."

"We goin' for cake, then?"

Jemima glanced up at Bernard, and gave a little smile to the little boy in his arms. She touched his leg, and he buried his face in Bernard's shoulder.

"Ah, what'chu bein' so shy for, Josiah?" Naomi cooed, combing he fingers through his hair. She glanced at her husband. "He's tired. The heat's got 'im."

"We'll lay 'im down for a nap at Dave's, then."

Naomi frowned. "Oh, honey, they don't got a crib anymore - "

"No?"

"No," she said, a little impatiently. "Tarnation, Bernard, Betsy's six years old!"

He shrugged, staring back at her helplessly. "Well hell, I don't know, honey..."

Naomi shook her head and tsk'ed him, but her eyes were bright and amused. Her dusty braid was gone, and she didn't wear men's trousers anymore. Jemima hadn't seen her wear them in years. She was still little and tough, like a terrier, but her son (long-waited for) had widened her hips and softened her edges. She'd cut her hair and wore make-up and generally presented herself like a Southern belle ought to. The money had done it. She was the wife of a rich man and the sister of a rich man, and the money had done it. Perhaps if her family still made money ranching, such things would be acceptable. But the Daniels were oil people now, and oil people weren't to be confused with fieldhands and sharecroppers.

"Ma."

Jemima glanced up at her son's voice, and saw him there with his sister's hand clutched in his. Betsy was only ten months younger than Benjamin - proper Irish twins - and she was every bit a Daniels. When Jemima took her out shopping with Naomi, everyone assumed she was Naomi's daughter and not hers. _Your daughter looks just like you!_ they heard. All the time, they heard it, and it used to be a point of bitterness for Naomi, during the years and years she was desperate to have a baby and just couldn't. But at last she had Josiah, who looked just as much like David as Betsy looked like her, and she thought it was funny now. _Ain't it funny, Dave, how my son looks exactly like you, but your son don't?_

Ain't it funny.

Jemima could almost hear that nerve-grating, whiny accent mocking them all, "_Ain't" it? "Ain't" it _funny_, Dave? May I call you Dave?_

"Darling, find him a towel so he doesn't ruin the seat," she said as they hurried to the car, anxious to be out of the dust and the heat.

"Jem, I don't think we brought a towel - "

"We did so. I packed it up in the trunk - "

"Well it ain't here."

"It is so. It's red. It's bright red."

"Honey, I'm tellin' you I don't see no goddamn - Oh. There it is. I see it now."

She let out an amused snort and slipped into the car on the passenger side. She heard Benji's feet squishing in their shoes as he settled himself on the towel.

"Benjamin, darling, you didn't wear your shoes in the water, did you?"

He nervously scratched the back of his neck, and Lionel snickered. "I forgot..."

Jemima sighed, glancing disapprovingly into the backseat. "Really, we just bought those shoes last week - "

"Ah, hell, Jem," David said with an emphatic slam of the door. "Boy's got more shoes'n God. Who gives a damn he ruins a pair?"

She shot him a little look out of the corner of her eye, but didn't say anything. He glanced up in irritation and heaved a sigh, and then started the car. Jemima crossed her arms over her chest. After a moment of bumping along the trail that let onto the main road, she said:

"You know, a lot of people have fallen on hard times lately. We shouldn't waste what we've been given."

David's hands flexed on the steering wheel, and he let out a kind of growling groan. "Christ, Jem. He's seven years old. He was excited to be baptized. Let 'im be."

Jemima raised her eyebrows, but decided she might as well keep her mouth shut. There was no arguing with David Daniels. She'd learned that lesson a hundred times over, especially when it came to the children.

"We don't got a crib anymore?" he asked all the sudden.

Jemima shook her head. "I lent it to the Hutchins'."

"Josiah can't sleep on our bed or somethin'?"

She shrugged. "I think your sister's afraid he'll roll off."

David let out a little sigh, his mouth twisting thoughtfully. He stared at the road, squinting in the bright morning sunlight.

"We oughtta keep a crib," he said quietly.

Jemima pressed her lips together and glanced at her hands. "Why?"

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, but didn't say anything.

When Jemima had come out of the ether after Betsy was born, she'd been surprised to find the doctor and her husband in the room with her. She'd frowned in confusion and asked if the baby was alright, and they'd assured her she was. She was. _But you nearly died, Mrs. Daniels. You see, there was a complication..._A complication. And it was unlikely she'd ever get pregnant again. It was unlikely she'd ever give birth to a live child if she _did_ happen to get pregnant again.

The baby was fine. David held her in his arms but gazed at Jemima with wide, wet eyes. _She's as beautiful as you, Jem. _She _was_ a beautiful baby, but not like Jemima. Still, he was so very shaken, and so very grateful both of them were alive and well and beautiful. And he caved with no argument at all to naming her Elisabeth. _With the S, darling. It's so much more stylish with the S, don't you think? Z's are so dreadfully harsh. _

_Whatever you want, Jem. Anything at all you want._

He'd bought her an enormous opal brooch because Betsy had been an October baby. Which was a terrible shame, really. Jemima detested opals.

"Just...you never know," he muttered.

Jemima sighed. So far the doctor's prediction had been accurate. She hadn't gotten pregnant in six years, which she was secretly grateful for. She would hate to get pregnant with a child who was almost certain to die. And anyway, being pregnant was horrid. It was a young girl's game, and Jemima didn't think she had the energy for it anymore. She would just die if she got pregnant after thirty. Just _die._

They pulled into the drive in front of the ranch house. Gabriel Henderson's car was already parked out front; he was still technically a bachelor, though Jemima suspected Lila Fay would solve that before the year was through. And he didn't have the bother of shepherding children about.

Lionel, Benjamin and Betsy piled out of the car, and Jemima sharply instructed Benjamin to bathe before getting dressed.

"No one wants to smell the creek while they're trying to enjoy cake," she told him. "Be sure to use soap."

David scoffed. "He knows to use soap."

Jemima lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, you think so?"

He chuckled and shook his head, holding open the door for her. She was grateful to be out of the heat and under the relief of the fans. Gradually she'd transformed the parlor over the years, and it no longer resembled the cowboy's lair it had been when she arrived. The walls had been brightened to a dove gray, and the massive leather furniture replaced with cheery chintz sofas. She'd made David burn that horrible cow's hide rug and exchanged it for an emerald green berber, soft and bright as bluegrass. She'd replaced the cowboy paintings with one massive Picasso, which had been perhaps the most heated argument the Daniels household had ever seen. She'd won out eventually, though, and David had conceded on the condition that he could keep the paintings. They hung in his den now, out of Jemima's sight.

Henderson was fixing himself a drink at the bar, and Lila Fay had perched herself on one of the couches, sipping happily at a steaming cup of coffee. Lila Fay was a pretty redhead with dazzling green eyes and a girlish face. A smattering of freckles and long hair kept up her illusion of teenaged charm, but she was actually twenty-four years old.

"I hope you don't mind, I started the coffee," she said.

"Not at all," Jemima said. "Though I can hardly believe you want a cup of coffee in this boiling heat."

Lila Fay giggled. "Honey, I was raised on coffee in the boilin' heat. If I had to wait for a cool day to have a cup, I'd have less coffee than Christmases."

Jemima smiled, glancing across the room at Lila Fay's beau. "Did you find the bourbon alright, Mr. Henderson?"

He smirked, giving her a chiding but amused look. "Don't you go givin' me a hard time, Jem."

David let out a snort, striding across the room and joining Henderson at the bar.

"She can't give a hard time to nobody about havin' a drink," he said, setting a couple of old-fashioned glasses on the table top and reaching for the bottle of whiskey.

"Actually, darling," Jemima said all the sudden, "make mine a vodka."

David frowned, puzzled. "We got vodka?"

"Of course we do. It's in the cupboard beneath."

"Hell do you want that shit for?"

Jemima huffed a little sigh, and put her hands on her hips. "Can't I have a vodka if I'm in the mood?"

"Give that woman what she want, Dave!" Lila Fay put in with a giggle.

He shrugged, raising his hands in defeat. " 'Course you can, honey. You just never do." He let out a sigh, bending over and rifling through the forgotten bottles in the cupboard beneath. A half-used bottle of tequila. A barely-tasted bottle of absynthe. An unopened bottle of ouzo. Any and everything that wasn't whiskey or bourbon or brandy. So many liquors that had tasted so fine on their many vacations here or there in the world. So many liquors they'd simply_ had_ to take back for their friends to try. _It's called curacao, darling. Look at how blue it is! _None of it ever tasted right when they were home again. _Tastes like cough syrup to me. Fix me up an old fashioned instead._

"I don't even know what you do with vodka," David muttered to himself, staring suspiciously at the clear bottle in his hand.

"Just put it on ice, darling," Jemima called.

"Is that how you have it?"

She sighed. "Well, of course. It's Russian, darling. You simply must drink it cold."

He snorted, piling a few sweating cubes of ice into her glass and splashing it full of vodka. He held it up and looked at her obviously. "This is what you want?"

Jemima nodded her head, and he brought it over. Cautiously, she took the first little sip. It bit her tongue, sharp and cruel and vivid. She could feel him there beside her again, sipping greedily at his own glass of vodka. She stared hard into transparent depths of her glass. _Your son's been baptized today. Congratulations, darling._ Beni had been baptized more times than he could remember, he'd told her with a clever and sacrilegious little glint in his eye. _I have been washed clean of all of my sins,_ he said, _more times than I can remember._

The door swung on its hinges, and Naomi's cheery, breathless voice pulled her back into the parlor.

"Sorry we're late!" she said. "Decided to drop Josiah off with Charlene so's he'd get a good nap."

"Ah, but I was hopin' to see 'im!" Lila Fay said.

Naomi smiled and pulled her hat off her head. "I'll send Bernard for him after a bit."

Just then Burns tripped in after her. "You'll send me for what now?"

"For who, honey. For Josiah. Lila Fay wants to see 'im."

He blinked in confusion. "But we just dropped 'im off a second ago - "

"I mean after a while," Naomi told him. "Give it a couple hours, then go get him."

Burns let out a sigh and dropped into the nearest chair. "Alright, honey. Alright."

Naomi stretched her arms over her head and sat down next to him. She eyed her brother at the bar playfully. "You fixin' drinks, Dave?"

"Well, didn't mean to be no bartender - "

"Hush. Won't kill you to make your beloved sister a drink," she said. "I'll have..." She glanced around the room thoughtfully, and frowned at the glass in Jemima's hand. "You havin' water, Jem?"

"Vodka."

"Ah. Fixin' to say..." She glanced back at her brother. "Fix me one 'a them vodkas then."

David raised his eyebrows. "Really? You ever had vodka?"

"No, but today's a new day and I want one."

David let out a snort, turning his gaze to Lila Fay. "You want a vodka now? Seems to be the drink do-jer 'round here."

"No thank you."

_"Du jour."_

"What?"

"It's _du jour_, darling. 'The drink _du jour.'"_

"That's what I said, ain't it?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Nevermind."

David let out a perplexed sigh and glanced at Burns. "What you want, Bernard? Since apparently my face turned black and I look like a waiter now."

Burns shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Bourbon's fine."

"Thank you," David said. " 'Bout time somebody had somethin' that made sense."

Naomi huffed a sigh. "Dave, what gol-darned difference it make to you what anybody else drinks?"

He waved off her comment with a dismissive hand and muttered to himself as he fixed their drinks. "Don't make no difference," he said to himself. "Don't make no damn difference to me."

"Hey, there he is!"

Jemima glanced up from her drink at Henderson's sudden exclamation, and saw Benji scurrying down the stairs. His clothes were dry but his hair was wet, and his face looked surprised and guilty when he looked and saw the crowd of adults waiting for him. He caught his mother's gaze, and she smiled.

"Come on and sit with me for a moment, Benji."

His mouth twitched, but he hurried across the room with his head down, anyway, and leaned up against the sofa beside her. He glanced nervously about the room and then tugged on her arm and whispered in her ear, "Are we havin' cake soon?"

She nodded her head, tugging playfully on one of his ears. He swatted her hand away.

"Where's your brother and sister?" she asked.

He shrugged his skinny shoulders.

"Well go on and find them, then," she said with a little sigh. He glanced around with a conflicted expression, and she laughed. "Darling, no one's going to eat your baptismal cake without you. Run along, now."

He hurried past David just as he was passing off drinks to his sister and brother-in-law, and David caught him by the shoulder and touseled his hair. He slipped out of his grasp in a flash and ran outside, the door banging closed behind him. David scowled for a moment, and strode across the room, threw open the door, and shouted:

"Hey! This ain't a barn! Don't slam the door!"

And promptly slammed it shut. Jemima could feel Naomi's amused eyes on her face, and glanced up to see her lips pressed into a tight line against the want to smile.

David grumbled something and dropped onto the couch next to Jemima. He slung an arm over her shoulders and took a gulp of his whiskey.

"I don't care what ya'll say," Henderson said with a chuckle. "I think they handed you the wrong one at the hospital."

"Oh, hush," Lila Fay said, tossing a throw pillow at him.

David rolled his eyes, but Jemima said with a sarcasm that was almost too precise, "Oh, darling, don't you know? He was dropped off by the Gypsies. That's where babies come from, after all."

Burns chuckled into his drink. But Henderson shook his head.

"The older he gets, the more I don't see nobody in him."

"Please," Lila Fay said. "You don't see nobody in nobody." She glanced around the room with her bright, sparkling eyes. "Ya'll know Doughertys live 'cross from the creek?"

"Sure," Naomi said.

"You know they got that little one Sharon, with all the curls and the really dark eyes?"

Naomi's face brightened. "Oh, yes! Spittin' image 'a her ma."

Lila Fay pointed at Henderson smugly. "Didn't I tell you? I told you!" She turned animatedly back to Naomi. "I _told_ him! I says, 'Honey, you know whose that is from a mile away.' And he says to me, 'Whose is she?'"

All of them laughed, and Naomi stared at Henderson in incredulous amusement. "Gabe, you gotta be kiddin'! Wasn't her ma in your class?"

"Who's her ma?"

They started laughing again.

"Honey, you a mess," Lila Fay told him with an affectionate grin.

"Abigail Andersen. She was in your class, I know she was."

"She was," David agreed. He turned and looked at Henderson. "You don't remember Abigail Andersen?"

"Well, sure I remember - "

"Only had the biggest crush on you a body ever had," Naomi said.

Lila Fay's jaw dropped in delight. "No! Abigail Andersen! You mean to tell me that little curly-headed dumplin' could 'a been _yours _if you'd a' played your cards right, and you can't even tell that's her ma?"

"Ah, hell," David said with a dismissive snort. "He didn't notice Abigail Andersen was sweet on him. He didn't notice nobody 'less they had a pigskin."

Lila Fay smiled brightly, giving Henderson a wink. "My big football man."

Naomi grinned and lifted her glass to her lips. "You mighty lucky Gabe didn't start noticin' girls til he was well out 'a high school."

She took her first sip of vodka, and her face contorted in disgust. She glanced up at Jemima incredulously. "You mean to tell me you drink this?"

"No, she don't," David said testily.

Jemima rolled her eyes. "I do, too. Every now and again I do."

Naomi shook her head and put the glass on the coffee table between them. "I cannot abide that." She nudged Bernard. "You get me some 'a that English scotch they brung back couple months ago."

Bernard nodded his head and got up complacently to do as she asked.

"Can't believe you drinkin' that stuff," she said, shaking her head at Jemima's glass.

Her sister-in-law shrugged. "I suppose it's a matter of nostalgia for me."

Jemima felt her husband's thoughtful gaze on her face, but she didn't look up. She took another sip of vodka and leaned back into the sofa.

"Nostalgia for what?" he demanded after a moment.

She raised her eyebrows at his suspicious expression. "Why, for my torrid affair with a Russian, of course," she told him dryly.

David snorted and rolled his eyes while his friends and sister chuckled.

"Come on, Jem..."

She let out a dismissive and impatient sigh. "Well why on earth do you ask about it like that? Like I'm hiding some sort of passionate secret? I just like vodka now and then. That's all."

David grumbled a sigh and looked plaintively at the other men. "She's just sore about this baptism business still."

Jemima sighed loudly.

"Seven years, she's kept a grudge about this gol-darn baptism."

She turned and glared at him tersely. "Well he's baptized now, isn't he?"

His eyes widened in irritation. "That's what I said, ain't it? That's what I been sayin'..."

Naomi shook her head. "And they think blacks and whites can marry each other? Lord above, a Baptist and a Anglican can barely keep it together."

David scoffed, his arm tightening around Jemima's shoulders. "Hey," he told his sister defensively, "we're_ more than_ just keepin' it together."

Naomi's brow furrowed at his bristling tone. "Honey, it was just a joke - "

"Well I don't like it," he snapped back. "You and Bernard fight. Lila Fay and what's-his-name over there fight. Everybody fights. Don't mean we ain't happy." He gave his wife a nudge. "Right, honey?"

Jemima strained a little smile and nodded her head. "We're perfectly happy."

She touched the side of his face, and pulled his ear to her mouth. And she whispered an apology for being so cross at him. She whispered at apology and kissed his temple, and he nodded his head and took a sip from his drink.

"Hey, Dave."

He glanced up and met Henderson's little smirk.

"Name's Gabe Henderson."

David snorted, finding a throw pillow behind his back and tossing it at him. "I know your name, you stupid som'bitch."

Jemima let out a little sigh, and sat up in her seat. She patted David's leg. "I'm going to go see about getting the cake ready."

"Oh!" Naomi exclaimed, turning quickly to Bernard. "Honey, you gotta go get Josiah."

He stared back at her dismally. "Honey, it's so damn hot, and it's ten minutes both ways - kids'll be done eatin' 'fore I get back - "

Her eyes widened. "Honey, you know how he loves cake." She turned and looked about the room emphatically. "He just _loves_ cake."

Henderson let out a snort. "Who doesn't?"

But Naomi wasn't paying any attention to him. "Bernard - "

"I'll wrap up a bit of cake for him," Jemima spoke up diplomatically. "You've barely been here an hour. He hasn't gotten a proper nap yet."

They ate cake there in the parlor with their liquor, and the children ate theirs kneeling at the coffee table with glasses brimming full of milk. Jemima watched her children with her blue eye and her brown eye. She watched them eating happily away at the sweet, fluffy cake, and shook her head in amusement.

Her genes, it would appear, were virtually impotent.

Most people thought Lionel looked like her, but that was only because his hair and eyes and complexion were so much lighter than his siblings. He had blond hair that curled at the nape of his neck, and narrow, sky-colored eyes, and the hot Texas sun had freckled him like it would any proper Englishman. But his features were purely Oliver's, and seeing old Ollie reborn on a child made her smile to herself in a way that Benjamin's features never did. Ollie was a good man. And he was a handsome man, when he was young. Before Jemima knew him. She felt as if she was getting to see him now, watching Lionel grow up. She was going to see Ollie at his absolute best, a part of his life she'd missed because she was so much younger than him. Lionel was good; so very good, like his father, and peaceful.

Lionel knew his real father was dead, and that David wasn't the man responsible for him. But he called David "dad" anyway. He knew his father was a good man and that he would have liked to have known him, but he also knew that David was the man who loved him and raised him and called him his own. He talked like David and dressed like David and walked like David. He was peaceful. He knew where he came from, and he knew where he was. He was eight-years-old, and he knew that.

But Benjamin was a restless, nervous little thing. _He weighed ten pounds when he was born, _David liked to joke, _and can you believe? He's already doubled his weight in only seven_ _years! _Restless and nervous, like some unknown little part of him was aware his situation wasn't quite right. He was scared of David's big booming voice and quick temper. He was scared of him even though David spoiled him terribly, and usually took his side against Jemima. He glanced at David all the time curiously, as if he was searching for something...

But perhaps that was just Jemima's imagination. He was only seven. He couldn't possibly have any such doubts. Goodness, if he could believe in Santa Claus, he certainly couldn't doubt that David Daniels was his father. No one had ever told him any different. No one had ever suggested any different.

It was only her guilt, she decided. It was only her guilt, pressing uncomfortably there in the back of her mind. The boy didn't know any different. Not _any_ different. Children were creatures of faith. Hadn't the boy just been baptized, blindly accepting his new place in the kingdom of God as promised? Hadn't he?

She took another little sip of her vodka. She sipped at it until she was numb, and the afternoon passed before her eyes in a haze of laughter and fried chicken and _I don't know, go ask your father_. When at last the darkness of night stained the sky, and their guests had gone, and the children were in bed, Jemima washed her face. She washed her face with gentle fingers, because she didn't want to wake herself up from the pleasant numbness. She slipped out of her clothes and into her nightgown, and pulled back the covers of the bed. The pillows and blankets were so very soft, and she let out a delicious sigh. Sleep - _ahh_ - she'd sleep Beni Gabor and his blessed vodka away.

"Hey, Jem?"

She heard her husband's voice somewhere beyond the darkness of her eyelids.

"Yes, darling?" she murmured.

"You don't think we're just 'gettin' by,' do you?"

Her face contorted in a drunken, exaggerated frown, but she didn't open her eyes. "Of course not, darling. Of course not."

"You're...ya know...happy, ain't ya?"

She wanted to giggle at the stiff discomfort of his voice, but she dared not. She bit back her smile as best she could in her current state.

"Darling, I'm positively ecstatic."

She heard him let out a little scoff, and then heard the mattress creak as he settled himself next to her. She heard the snap of the light as he turned it off. And then she felt his arms around her and his body next to her, and his breath hot against her ear. She felt his lips against her jaw and her neck. His hands traveled down her body, and she let out a blissful moan.

"Why don'tcha get that crib back from the Hutchins."

She frowned, reluctantly opening her eyes in the darkness as he shifted on top of her. She found his gaze close to hers in the black room and stared back at him, puzzled.

"Darling, it isn't any use..."

His hand found hers and squeezed it enthusiastically. "You don't know that."

She shook her head. "Darling, the doctor said - "

"Well doctors don't know everything."

The corner of her mouth smiled at his quick tone. "No, I suppose they don't know _everything._ But they_ do_ tend to know medical business..."

She heard him take a little breath, and she thought his face looked almost desperate in the dark. "Just get the crib back."

She forced a little smile, and nodded her head. "Alright, darling. If it makes you happy."


	3. promise never to part

**_Author's Note._**_ I've been trying to decide if I want to hold out on this chapter or not, and ultimately decided not to. However, it'll be the last chapter until the ALTA follow-up, _Exeunt, _is up. Next chapter just has too many spoilers, and I think the whole storyline actually reads better if the events are read chronologically._

**_Disclaimer. _**_The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios. The title and chapter titles are taken from the song "It Ain't Me, Babe" by Johnny Cash (because what could be more fitting than a Johnny Cash song for the Americans?), originally written by Bob Dylan. The ranch and setting take a heavy cue from the film _Giant_. As far as I know, Blackbird, Texas is a town of my own invention. _

* * *

**IT AIN'T ME, BABE**

* * *

**promise never to part.**

_The Fireman's Dance: Blackbird, Texas, 1940_

David Daniels was on his third beer, and he was feeling good.

He loved the Fireman's Dance in Blackbird. He'd loved it since he was a little kid, sneaking sips of punch from the bowl and begging another root beer or cream soda off of his pops. It had always been the only thing there really was to do in a town that size, and most everyone looked forward to it. Too many of Jemima's fancy trips often took them out of the country during the dance, but this year he put his foot down. It hadn't taken much effort, really. Between the kids' begging and his unwillingness to entertain a discussion, Jemima had at last threw up her hands and said, _Oh well to the Caribbean, then!_

_Ain't you seen enough and had enough 'a this world, Jem? Let's sit our asses down for five goddamn minutes and stay home._

She'd rolled her eyes - her pretty, startling eyes - but she had a smile on her face. And he smiled to himself, just thinking about her and that irritated expression on her face. Sometimes he liked to get her goat. Sometimes he liked to rile her. She was damn cute when she was riled, and he couldn't help but to tease her now and then.

She was thirty-six now, and she looked exactly the same to him as she had when they were married. He had a tendency to forget she was so young when they got married, since she was already a widow with a child. And everything about Jemima was mature. She'd carried herself like she was thirty and talked like she was thirty and he'd forgotten that she'd actually just barely broken into her twenties when they met. She looked thirty then and she looked thirty now, thin and poised and dark blonde, with a cigarette hanging between her fingers.

He supposed things were different about her, even if he really didn't think she'd aged. She was stylish; she'd always been stylish. And her hair was longer now. Her skirts were shorter now. She looked like a movie star. Like she'd stepped off of a damn movie poster. She always had.

She sat there next to him with her legs crossed, rocking one foot to the music that was playing. She stole little drags from a dying cigarette, and stared at something that wasn't there at all. And then she noticed he was watching her.

"What's the matter?" she asked. A Southern accent is infectious, but she'd stayed stubborn against it. She spoke prim and English, though perhaps softer than she used to. She might not have known what had slipped away.

He smiled and shook his head. "Nothin', baby. Nothin' at all."

She nodded, a little smirk creeping in the corner of her mouth. She glanced at him and nodded at the dancefloor. "Are you aware that your fourteen-year-old daughter is having a dance?"

Dave frowned, immediately straightening in his seat and unabashedly searching the dancefloor for Betsy. Jemima giggled.

"Darling, you're being terribly obvious."

"I'm her father," he retorted. "I can be as obvious as I want."

She was giggling again, but the sound of her laughter faded as his eyes settled on someone entirely different from his already-too-pretty teenaged girl. Someone he hadn't seen a while.

Quite a while.

He didn't know why, but his hand shook a little as he reached for his beer and took a deep gulp.

"What's the matter, darling?" Jemima's teasing voice broke through his surprise. "Is she dancing with a devil? Just an absolute_ devil?"_

"Mind if we sit with ya'll?"

David tore his gaze away, glancing up irritably at his sister and brother-in-law. Before anyone could answer, Naomi plopped in a chair, and Bernard kicked another one away from the table so that he'd have room to sit, too. He had a plate of pie balanced in each hand, and open beers in the crook of one arm.

"Naomi, is that who I think it is?"

His sister frowned, following his pointing finger to the person across the room. She stared with curious, squinting eyes for a moment before her mouth opened in surprise.

"Well I'll be," she said at last, just barely above a whisper.

Jemima looked between both of them in confusion. "Who are you talking about? What's going on?"

Naomi picked up one of the beers Bernard had put on the table and took a gulp. She gestured with the bottle in her hand. "You see that girl there with the black hair - well, ain't exactly a girl - but you see her, right? 'Bout our age - well, more like _my_ age - "

Jemima scouted out the mysterious person and turned quickly back to Naomi. "Yes, of course. What about her?"

"That's Cara Lee McCoy."

Jemima shrugged, her face still as puzzled as before. "Who's Cara Lee McCoy?"

Who, indeed. Speaking of people who hadn't changed a bit since the last time Dave had seen them.

Her hair was still so shiny and black, and even at this distance, he could see her eyes were as vibrant and blue-green as they ever were. She was laughing her easy, musical laugh and against his will, he smiled to see that dimple - deep and sweet - in the pit of her cheek. His throat felt dry.

Cara Lee McCoy.

Everyone rushed her first name in their easy accents, and said it like some kind of contrived adjective, "carolly." Like they were describing a song. _That hymn felt kinda carolly, didn't it?_ That's how she was. Bright and lyrical and promising, like Christmas Eve. Cara Lee. Sweet and lovely. He'd loved her his whole life, the way young men love pretty girls. His whole life up til then, he'd loved her. Head over heels. Out of breath. In love.

They went out together, back when they were teenagers. They went out even though she swore she never would. _You're no good, Dave Daniels, _she'd giggled with those adorable dimples flashing and offered him a wink, _and anyway, you ain't my type. _Dave had never taken no from anybody, and he wasn't about to start with an irresistible beauty like Cara Lee. He'd have her, one way or another. And the more she turned him down, the more he wanted her, until at last he wore her down to an exasperated yes. _Yes, Dave. Fine. But you best enjoy yourself. I ain't goin' on another with you._

They were out til after midnight, kissing hot and frantic and breathless because they were young and alive. No one had ever been more young and alive than them.

_You're gonna marry me, Cara Lee._

_I ain't._

_You are too, and you know it. You know it, don't ya?_

_Dave...I known it my whole life. I mean all of my life. All of it._

He really hadn't meant anything sleeping with Jemima in Egypt. It was just a little...a little nothing. Just two people meaninglessly enjoying themselves. They were grown ups. It was the Twenties. So why not? Jemima had never given him any reason to think she wanted more than to fool around. And Dave was a man. He had a right to a bit of fun. He wasn't married to Cara Lee. Not yet. Soon enough it would be them - just the two of them. But he wasn't married and he didn't owe anybody an explanation. He loved Cara Lee, of course. He loved her. But he wasn't married and he didn't owe her an explanation.

Just the same, she expected one when he came back from Egypt with a pregnant new wife.

He hadn't had much in the way of explanations to offer, and she took his defensive flustering with a coolness that he never admitted hurt. And that was all. She'd never been in want for beaus, and she married some...somebody from Houston and moved off, presumably to forget him.

Maybe so he could forget her.

Regardless she wasn't in Blackbird, and Dave had other things to worry about. He had a new son and then a new daughter and a beautiful, clever wife whom everybody liked, even if her proper Englishness seemed peculiar sometimes. He had a good life. His rigs were coming in and the money was more than covering the hit the Depression was taking on most everybody else. He was keeping folks employed and the whole town was grateful for him and Burns and Henderson being there. Things were good. He didn't need Cara Lee for things to be good.

But suddenly here she was again, like a vision out of a dream. She met his eyes across the way, and smiled. He didn't know why his body suddenly become stiff and uncomfortable when she started towards their table.

He didn't need Cara Lee for things to be good.

He didn't.

But just the same he felt a kind of gaping in his gut that irritated him, and he found himself frowning when she arrived, out of breath.

"I thought that was you, Dave!"

He took a nonchalant gulp of his beer. "Yep. It's me."

Those dimples. "I thought so. How you been?"

He shrugged. "Fine."

He could feel Jemima eyeing him disapprovingly for being so blatantly rude, but he ignored her.

"Is this your wife?"

"Yes," Jemima jumped in cheerily. "I'm Jemima."

"Cara Lee Carver."

Dave let out a snort. "It's Carver now, is it?"

She met his eyes with quizzical amusement. "Yes. Saw a broad-shouldered youngin' over yonder; figured he must be yours."

Burns chuckled quietly to himself, and Dave blew a raspberry dismissively. Jemima swatted him, but she couldn't keep from giggling herself. Naomi was the first one composed enough to say:

"Honey, you got the wrong boy!"

Cara Lee frowned in confusion. "Ain't it him over there? Good-lookin' with the dark hair?"

Jemima and Naomi sat up a little in their seats to see who she was indicating; Dave didn't even glance up.

"I can damn well guarantee you got the wrong kid."

Burns chuckled, shaking his head. "Don't think nobody's ever called Benji broad-shouldered."

_Or good-looking, _waited the words no one would dare say aloud.

Jemima glanced at him, a little smirk in her mouth but a kind of defensiveness in her gaze. "Now Bernard, he's only fifteen..."

Burns held up his hands. "Hey. I know. Didn't mean nothin' by it. I'm just sayin' - "

She stared back at him calmly. "I know what you're saying."

Dave sighed, his eyes twinkling with something like amusement. "You done woke the mama bear, Burns."

Jemima swatted him but turned her attention to Cara Lee. "Regardless, the short of it is, that isn't our son." She scanned the dance floor with a frown increasing between her eyes. "Where is Benjamin...?"

The words had barely left her mouth before a gunshot rang out overhead, and a woman screamed, and loud above all of the commotion, someone else bellowed:

"I don't care if you the son 'a Dave Daniels, John D. Rockefeller, or _the Almighty God,_ you gonna keep your quick little fingers away from my pockets or you'll be losin' 'em, you hear me, boy?"

Jemima gasped, turning desperately to Dave, her eyes darting wide and frantic between him and the scene forming on the suddenly vacant dance floor.

"My word," Cara Lee murmured.

Dave sucked in a deep breath, anger pounding hot and oppressive as a summer afternoon through his whole body. He could almost not think for the blood-colored emotion pumping between his ears.

Because goddamn Benji.

Honest to God, goddamn that little prick of a son.

Dave heaved himself out of the chair, his hand on his holster. He was only vaguely aware of Burns trailing him. At some point, Henderson must have joined, too, because there he was to his right, hanging just far enough back too keep things from looking too much like an all-out brawl.

In the space that had cleared on the floor, Benjamin stood in his stooped, nervous way, hands held up in surrender, eyes wide and cowardly and pitiful. He turned his skinny face to Dave, but couldn't be too relieved at the look in his father's face. Dave saw his Adam's apple jerk nervously, and actively fought the urge to clock him square on the jaw.

Standing just a little too close to him was Festus Black, a drunk and a gambler, who also happened to sharecrop on the only spit of the Daniels' land worth picking at.

"What the hell's goin' on here?" Dave demanded.

Festus had a permanent lazy eye, and it stared at him crazily until the other had a chance to find his glare, too.

"Mr. Daniels, I know he's your son and all, but ain't nobody got a mind to abide a thief!"

"I didn't take nothin'!" Benjamin said in a tone that whined, pointing accusingly at Festus. "Least nothin' that wasn't mine to begin with!"

"Easy now, ya'll," the slow, rumbling voice of Sheriff Longmont rolled in. He situated himself in between Festus and Benjamin, but hung back a little from Dave. He didn't dare step in front of the esteemed but short-tempered Mr. Daniels. "Let's sort this out like gentlemen..."

Festus sniffed. "Squirrelly som'bitch took m' wallet clean outta my pocket! Emptied it, an' I caught him sneakin' it back in again!"

Dave twitched with agitation; Longmont raised his eyebrows. "You got the empty wallet there, Festus?"

He dug a beat-up leather wallet out of his pocket and handed it to the sheriff, muttering all the while about how it was empty now, twenty-three bucks in there, and it's empty now...Longmont flipped through it.

Dave eyed his son.

He loved Benji. Of course he did. He was his boy, and he loved him. But goddamn it, if he had to sort through another of his messes, he was going to have to shoot him. It wasn't that he was a bad kid, Dave knew. He was just...just getting to that age. That rebellious teen age, and unlike Lionel - who'd chosen to act out in a way that made sense to Dave, by staying out too late and sneaking beer with the rest of the high school football team - Benji had settled himself down at any and every poker game that would abide a snot-nosed kid playing with them. He was only fifteen, and most of the roughnecks didn't have any patience playing cards with a fifteen-year-old, but seeing as how he was a Daniels, they all figured he had pockets lined with gold and oil, and they usually tolerated him if it meant they could take him for all he was worth.

More like all Dave was worth.

It wasn't like Benji had ever worked a day in his life, and so far he had no intentions of working, either. He had no interest in anything except card-playing and worrying his mother sick sneaking out at all hours to whatever seedy little place and seedy little people would play with him. Which was, of course, another thing.

This wasn't the first time Dave had had to swoop in and rescue Benji with his brawn and his money (mostly his money), but this was probably the first time he was having to do it in front of Jemima, and had he room for any thoughts other than pummeling his son, he might have been dreading that conversation with his wife already.

"He was cheatin'!" Benji said, loud and complaining.

"Was not!"

"Was so! Had cards fallin' out his sleeves like autumn leaves!"

Longmont snorted, giving the boy an incredulous look. "How 'bout you save that poetry talk for Mrs. Longmont's English class. It'd keep you outta trouble."

Benji flinched, crossing his arms over his chest nervously. He glanced up at Dave for a moment, but quickly retreated to his shoes.

"I want my twenty-three dollars," Festus was saying.

Benji kicked at a rock on the floor. "Won it, fair and square."

Longmont heaved a sigh, looking at Dave in something like weariness, or boredom. Probably boredom. "If you'll give 'im the dough, I'll let you handle your boy at home. Won't book him or nothin'."

Dave's jaw flexed, and he stared hard at his son as he told the sheriff, "Oh, _believe me_, he'll wish you'd booked him after I get through with him."

Longmont snorted. "I figgered so."

Benji gulped, twitching there anxiously as Dave picked out a few bills and handed them over to Festus. He glanced up at his father with wide, desperate eyes, but Dave didn't give him a moment to use them for mercy. He took hold of Benji's ear with a ferocity that made the boy yelp, and dragged him all the way to the table before finally letting go. He gave him a terse shove in Jemima's direction, and told him:

"You go wait in the car with your mother. I'll get to you in a minute."

Benji trembled and nodded his head, scurrying along beside Jemima into the night. Dave met her upset gaze only briefly before turning his attention to the party. He glanced around agitatedly, his hands on his hips, and then turned to Naomi and demanded:

"Where's Betsy and Lionel? They somehow miss their brother causin' the biggest ruckus this town's ever seen?"

"I don't know about the _biggest,"_ Cara Lee's voice piped up, teasing but sweet. He could see that dimple out of the corner of his eye, and she gave him a wink. "As I recall, you caused a ruckus or two back in the day."

Dave shook his head, too aggravated to indulge her flirtation. He let out a loud sigh, turning his attention to Naomi again.

"You seen 'em or what?"

Naomi raised her eyebrows, meeting his irritable glare evenly. "Honey, they ain't_ my_ kids." She took a sip of her beer. "But I think I saw Betsy over by the punch bowl, and Lionel...well. It's been a bit now, but last I saw he was wanderin' yonder with Mabel Dubois."

Cara Lee giggled, and Dave glanced up at the sky. "Now why couldn't my boy get into that kinda trouble 'stead 'a this?"

"If he's a thing like you, he'll be gettin' into it soon enough," Cara Lee said in a voice that was too quiet to be playful. Dave glanced down and met her eyes, green and blue as ever. He heard her suck back a little breath, and he tried not to notice the way she was looking at him, the same way she'd looked at him the first night they'd made love. Hot and frantic and out of breath.

"You go tend to that son," Naomi said pointedly, glancing between them. Dave looked away and met her chiding face with defensive eyes. "Bernard and me'll take them other two home."

Dave nodded his head. "Alright." His gaze drifted back to Cara Lee again. "Nice seein' you again."

She offered him a sad smile. "Always, Dave. Always nice seein' you."

He sighed and trudged away, reminded with a spine-tingling jolt of the situation with Benji waiting in the car. He didn't want to deal with his son. He'd much rather be sitting at that table with Cara Lee, maybe having a dance...just for old time's sake, of course. Just for old time's sake...

He swung open the car door and settled into his seat, glaring back at Benji through the rearview mirror.

"Where are Lionel and Betsy?" Jemima asked.

Dave told her that Naomi and Bernard were bringing them home, and started the car. They drove in silence down the road back to the ranch. Dave was vaguely aware of Jemima sniffling now and then, and dabbing at her eyes. He tried not to be irritated with her, too. Of course she was going to be upset over Benji. Mothers and boys...it was a whole thing. He'd disappointed his own mother enough as a teenager to know. Of course she was upset.

He just didn't have the gumption for this anymore. Cara Lee's eyes and dimples and quiet, lilting voice had consumed him, clouding his mind in a haze of old memories the whole way back to the ranch. And as they pulled up to the house and got of the car, he found he didn't care about Benji and the card game anymore. He didn't care and he didn't want to deal with it. So what if the boy played cards? Dave could give him a hearty walloping, and he'd just go and do it again. And anyway, Festus probably_ had_ been cheating. He was known to cheat. It had cost Dave twenty-three dollars, but so what? That was small change for him, and God knows he'd thrown more money at stupider things.

He got out of the car and walked inside, hearing Benji's nervous, creeping footsteps behind him all the way down the hall and into the kitchen. He heard Jemima let out a sigh as he opened the liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink, and he could feel her eyeing him persistently. He took a sip of bourbon, and she lost her patience.

"Well, young man? What have you got to say for yourself?" she demanded.

Benji jerked a shrug and mumbled, "I told you, he was cheatin'..."

"And that gives you a free license to pick his pocket like a common thief?" she nearly shouted, her voice straining through a strangely desperate sob. "Is that the sort of person you are?"

Dave heaved a sigh. "Oh, for Christ's sake, Jem..."

Her eyes snapped to his, wide and furious. "I beg your pardon! Do you really mean to tell me I'm the only one disturbed by this behavior?"

He was too weary to roll his eyes. "Jesus, it ain't like he's some kinda...criminal mastermind here. Festus was three sheets to the wind. A toddler coulda pulled the shirt off his back and he wouldn'ta known it."

Jemima's eyes narrowed. "Don't dismiss what he's done."

Benji's glance shifted warily between his parents. "He was cheatin'..." he mumbled plaintively again.

Jemima huffed, turning her glare to him furiously. "I don't care if he robbed you blind and gave you a black eye! That is not the way people in_ this_ family behave!"

Dave let out a loud, dismissive sigh. "Now don't start with that..."

"With _what?"_

He met her eyes evenly. "Boy's gotta defend himself. Can't tell him not to do somethin', let 'im get pushed around. Man's gotta take a stand - "

"Really?" she said with a sudden air of British coolness. She stared down her nose at him like a proper aristocrat. "Then perhaps you might explain to me how sneaking Mr. Black's wallet out of his pocket and stealing back his money constitutes any manner of 'taking a stand.'"

Dave's eyes hardened. He definitely wasn't in the mood for her blue-blooded airs, and that fancy vocabulary she liked to pull out every now and then to win an argument. His mouth set in a scowl, and he turned sharply to Benji.

"You go on to sleep. I'm done with you."

Benji looked confused, but didn't lose a moment scurrying out of the room before his mother started protesting. Dave let out a long sigh and took a much-needed gulp of bourbon, letting it drown out Jemima's furious shock.

"...I mean, what on earth is the matter with you?"

He glanced up at her with dull eyes. "Honey, this is hardly the worst of it."

Jemima's eyes widened. "And I suppose you just...let him go on his way those times, as well."

"Nope," he muttered into his glass. "Usually wallop 'im pretty good."

"Then why does he keep doing it?" she asked, her voice losing its edge to sad desperation. She dropped into a kitchen chair, holding her head in her hand.

Dave shrugged, feeling the twinge of sympathy at seeing her sitting there like that. For a moment he wished he had beat Benji instead. "I don't know, honey. I reckon 'cause he's too skinny to play sports and too ugly to dally with girls."

"Don't call him ugly."

He let out a surrendering sigh. "Sorry, honey. I forget you're sensitive about that. Your side 'a the family and all."

"That's not the only reason," she said, more to herself than to him. She met his eyes seriously. "I don't want him to think that...that the only girls he's handsome enough for are the bad ones."

Dave let out a snort. "Boys don't think that way, Jem."

"Perhaps not."

She sighed wearily, blinking away her tears. She stared at a far-off spot on the floor. He offered her a sad smile, and reached across the table for her hand. "Lemme get you a drink."

She nodded weakly.

"I don't want him to be a criminal," she said.

Dave found an old-fashioned glass and pulled out the bourbon. "He ain't gonna be a criminal."

"I don't want him to be like - "

She stopped abruptly, her teeth clicking as she clamped her mouth shut. He turned and looked at her curiously. She met his eyes and gave him a stiff shrug.

"I just don't want him to be a criminal is all."

Dave shook his head and filled up her glass. "You're blowin' this way outta proportion."

Jemima let out a sigh and nodded her head. He brought her the drink, and she sucked it in gratefully. He sat down at the table with her, sloshing the rest of his drink around in his glass. When she at last put hers back down on the table, she looked a little better.

"So who was that woman?" she asked after a moment, a fresh (if forced) smile on her face. "That...Cara Lee something-or-other?"

Dave cleared his throat in a way he hoped was nonchalant. He scratched the back of his neck. "Oh...nobody. She was nobody."

Jemima watched him, her eyebrows raised incredulously. She had a little smirk tucked in the corner of her mouth. "You know, we've been happily married for fifteen years now. It's alright if she was your sweetheart. Did the two of you have a torrid affair? Just an absolutely, _scandalously_ torrid affair?"

He stared into his glass, and felt her playful smile fade against the side of his face. He should have just told her, right away, that Cara Lee was his sweetheart back in high school. That that was all. But the seconds dragged on between them, and a kind of suspicion was lurking in his wife's eyes. He should have just told her so, right then. But he couldn't quite find the right way to lie to her. So he sat there in silence. And took a drink from his glass.

"She was nobody," he said again quietly.


	4. and nothin' more

**_Author's Note. _**_Whew, ya'll, this is a long one. Like, I knew it would be when I started, but I'm kind of surprised it clocks in at almost double what the other chapters are. So, yeah, just brace yourself. It takes a while!_

_Have you read _Exeunt_ yet? __** This chapter contains major spoilers for** _**Exeunt.**_ If that doesn't bother you, then go forth, my friend! ...But seriously, it's less confusing if you've read _Exeunt.

**_Disclaimer. _**_The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios. The title and chapter titles are taken from the song "It Ain't Me, Babe" by Johnny Cash (because what could be more fitting than a Johnny Cash song for the Americans?), originally written by Bob Dylan. As far as I know, Blackbird, Texas is a town of my own invention._

* * *

**IT AIN'T ME, BABE**

* * *

_The Cook Residence: Alexandria, Egypt, 1941_

**and nothin' more.**

Benjamin's mother thought he was asleep, but the truth was, even though he'd properly gorged himself on a fine prime rib and every possible fixing, he couldn't settle himself enough on the sofa to sleep. He could hear his brother snoring away on the sofa across from him, and his sister had slipped up to her room to sleep in a bed. It was about three in the afternoon and it was impossible not to nap after such a luxurious meal in the buzzing, sleepy heat. But Benjamin had always had trouble sleeping, even (or, as his mother said, _especially_) as a baby, and he laid there perfectly still with his eyes closed. He strained his ear to the quiet voices in the other room.

"Oh, there's no news, Jemima. You know that," his Aunt Tamsin was saying, busying herself with pouring tea. "The most interesting thing to happen around here is that neighbor we've acquired two doors down."

"In the yellow house?" his mother asked with an interest he knew was forced.

Aunt Tamsin let out a sigh. "Yes. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how I feel about him being in the neighborhood."

"Oh?" his mother's voice was genuinely interested now. "Why?"

Tamsin cleared her throat, and probably leaned closer. "Well, he's a criminal."

"What sort?"

"Oh, darling...tell me you were here when that Arab general killed his wife."

In the quiet stillness of the afternoon, he heard his mother suck in a little breath. "I wasn't. But I heard about it."

"The whole story?"

"Well. It's been a few years. But I imagine I remember it well enough."

"It was all on account of that torturer. You remember?"

Jemima paused. After a while, she said, "Of course."

"Well - he's the one who's moved in."

It was quiet for a moment. He could hear - or imagined he heard - his mother breathing very deeply. After a second, she said something that he couldn't quite hear, and then Tamsin said:

"Yes, that's right. How do you know him?"

"Darling, surely you remember he's the man who found the rebels who blew up the Beaumonts' house."

Tamsin gasped. "Oh, dear. I must have forgotten."

"It's been a number of years, I suppose."

"Well, certainly. But just the same. I should remember a thing like that. Gracious, I believe I even met him once now..."

Jemima let out a loud sigh. "Just down the street, is he?"

"Yes." Tamsin paused, and said in a voice that was curious but subdued, "Did you know him?"

Benjamin frowned in the strange quiet that followed, and strained his ear desperately for the sound of his mother's voice.

"I should say I knew him quite well," she said at last, and sucked back a sob.

"Oh, dearest, what is it?"

He listened to his mother's uneasy breathing for a moment as she struggled to collect herself. And then she whispered in a forlorn voice, "Oh, Tamsin, I must tell somebody. I'm aching from it."

"Jemima, you're worrying me."

"Please...I've kept it to myself for years now, and it's bloody near eating me alive."

"What is it?"

"Tamsin," his mother took a breath. "Tamsin, that man is Benji's father."

Benjamin's whole body froze. Her words hit him like a sledgehammer, and he could barely hear his aunt's shocked reaction over the pounding of blood in his ears. His stomach churned with an urgent, sickened feeling, though all the while a strange and calming sentiment started to warm its way down his limbs.

_I knew it._

The words spread through his face and down his neck like a heady gulp of liquor. Certainly he hadn't known that this neighbor of his aunt's was his father; how could he know something like that? But he _knew,_ he'd always known, that there was something wrong between him and his father. Between him and the man he thought was his father. Always, always he'd known that. Despite every desperate attempt on both of their parts to find a connection, he'd perpetually found himself removed from the man. How long had he wondered what was wrong with him? Why could Lionel, who wasn't even his father's son, be so close and natural to him, while Benjamin struggled for even a shred of familiarity? He'd always felt there was nothing between them, no matter how hard he searched. No matter how hard he tried to like the things his father liked and act the way his father acted. Nothing about him was natural or meaningful or inherent to Benjamin. And he supposed he'd known all along that he didn't belong to David Daniels.

He supposed even though he should have been, he wasn't angry over it.

But who was this man he belonged to? He blinked hard against the swarm of shocked thoughts in his head and strained to listen again, to pick his way back into the conversation...

"Oh, but Jemima, have you seen him? The man is positively grotesque."

"I saw him once," she said softly. "Years ago, when we came to visit right after Betsy was born. He was a mess. You wouldn't believe what those rebels did to him in prison."

"Oh, Jemima, I'd believe anything. They're animals."

"They castrated him."

"No!"

"They did."

Tamsin sighed. "Well, I suppose he's only gotten worse. You know that girl he was married to, that mayor's daughter - "

"Evelyn."

"Yes, Evelyn. You think I'd remember a thing like that. We went to university together you know...Anyway. You know she shot him."

"No...I didn't know that."

"Everyone thought he was finished, but he struggled on. And now he lives here."

"You said Evelyn shot him?"

"Oh, yes, darling. It was quite the scandal. He came to her house after he was released from prison, and nobody was home but her. And she was very far along with her son, and according to her, he threatened her or something along those lines...anyway, she felt so endangered, she shot him."

"Shot him where?"

"In the chest, I think. Or shoulder, perhaps. Anyway, she didn't kill him, but he wasn't in good shape to begin with."

"Oh, darling, he was an absolute mess when I saw him. Do you know he was using a cane?"

"Jemima, he can't even walk now. He's in a wheelchair."

His mother sucked back a breath, like she'd touched something that burned. "Oh, the poor man. Is there anything left for him at all? I mean, even if he doesn't deserve it...I know he doesn't, after all he's done. But isn't there...Isn't there anything in all the world he has that's good?"

Tamsin was very quiet for the sliver of a moment before saying, perhaps against her better judgment, "Well...there's Benjamin."

Benjamin's body tensed, and he held his breath in a silence that seemed to last an eternity before his aunt asked plaintively:

"Does he know...about Benjamin?"

"Yes," Jemima told her quietly.

"Has he ever tried to...make a connection with him?"

"No. Thank God."

Tamsin sighed. "Darling, I'd never say I thought Benjamin belonged to anyone but David...but I must tell you, I've always found it rather suspicious how quickly you got yourself in trouble with a millionaire's baby."

Jemima let out a bitter little laugh.

"That was, until you told me Betsy was on the way. Then I figured you were just so very prone to babies, it couldn't be helped."

Jemima sighed. "Well, I suppose I _was_ prone to babies..."

"Does David know?" Tamsin asked suddenly.

"Of course not," Jemima said in a nervous - almost fretful - voice. "Darling, I can't even imagine what he'd do if he knew. He adores Benjamin. Just adores him."

"Well, he should. Benji's a dear young man. And he's been a father to him, more than Beni Gabor ever has."

Benjamin tried not to suck in a breath too loudly. _Beni Gabor. _So that was his father's name. He wasn't a Daniels; he was a Gabor. He belonged to some tragically deformed man who lived just down the street.

Just down the street.

He laid there very still and opened his eyes. He stared up at the ceiling, his brow furrowed in consternation. Everything about him and inside him felt light and fuzzy and removed, like he and his body were two very seperate entities, and one couldn't control the other. He was disappointed when their conversation fell to a kind of quiet solace, and then Tamsin changed the subject altogether. Desperately, his mind traced back over the words he'd just overheard, concentrating to re-acquaint himself with everything they'd said about his real father. So many words crowded each other in his mind, and none of them were good. _Grotesque. Wheelchair. Prison. Castrated. Torturer. _Who was this man? How had he come to be Benjamin's father?

Of course Benjamin knew how technically-speaking, but_ how?_ Had his mother been having an affair with him? Had it been some fluke of a mistake? Had he raped her?

How had it happened?

He fidgeted, trying hopelessly to calm this new anxious surge of energy pounding in his veins. He forgot all about the heat and the sleepy meal. Cautiously, he sat up, casting a little glance towards the kitchen.

He could ask his mother about this man. But what would she say? She'd managed to lie to him and her husband and absolutely everyone else for the past seventeen years. Why wouldn't she lie again? It was in her best interest to lie again, after all. And even if she did tell the truth, she'd probably discourage him from meeting Beni Gabor. Maybe she'd even do something to prevent it.

No, if Benjamin wanted to meet his father and _really_ find out who he was, he was going to have to do it all on his own.

He was only just down the street.

Benjamin took a deep breath, and his whole body tingled when he stood up off of the couch. He glanced nervously towards the kitchen again, but there was only the sound of his aunt and mother happily twittering about old gossip, that dark and horrid secret released like a crow and forgotten.

But Benjamin hadn't forgotten.

He crept quietly across the room to the front door. He'd always been very good at sneaking out, much to Lionel's chagrin. With surprisingly steady fingers, he grasped the doorknob and turned it slowly, inching the door open as silently as the hinges could allow. He pulled it open just far enough for his slight form to escape through, and -

"Goin' somewhere?"

He bit back the surprised yelp that was ready to burst out of his mouth, and turned his wide eyes to his brother, laying there smugly on the couch.

"Shut up," he hissed, glancing at the kitchen again.

Lionel frowned, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. Before Benjamin could beg him not to, he sat up, following his darting eyes to the kitchen and back again.

"If you're going to shoot craps or somethin', 'least you can do is take me with you," he whispered.

Benjamin shook his head. "I ain't."

Lionel breathed a quiet sigh, gazing up at him with smug, half-lidded eyes. "You either take me with you, or I tell Ma you left."

"Goddamnit," he muttered. "Fine. Come on then."

Lionel smirked, striding happily behind his brother to the door. Benji watched him anxiously. "You gotta be quiet, though."

"I _am_ bein' quiet."

"You're not. That's why you always get caught. That's your whole goddamn problem."

Lionel rolled his eyes and slipped out behind him, side-stepping him on the porch so that Benjamin could close the door in his silent, expert way. They glanced at one another, and hurried briskly away from the house and down onto the sidewalk. Benjamin didn't slow down until they'd passed two houses and stood well out of sight of the kitchen window. He blinked heavily in the bright, overbearing sunlight and glanced up and down the block thoughtfully.

"So where're you goin' anyhow?"

Benjamin huffed a sigh. "I heard Ma and Aunt Tamsin talkin' about somethin'. I wanna find out about it."

Lionel perked up in interest. "What's that they were talkin' about?"

Benjamin's mouth twisted thoughtfully. He'd stumbled upon his mother's secret purely by coincidence, and he knew it was probably best if he kept it to himself. But Lionel was already out here with him. And Lionel was his brother - the only real friend he even had...and besides, Lionel's real father wasn't David Daniels, either. Maybe he could understand a little.

He glanced up and down the street nervously again, and pulled his brother closer. He told him what he'd heard his mother say about his real father. Lionel took a step back and stared at him with wide eyes.

"Are you serious?"

Benji scoffed. "Why would I make that up?"

"That's nuts."

Benjamin shifted his weight nervously. "I'm gonna go see him."

Lionel let out a sigh, eyeing his brother with a look of something like caution and disapproval. "I don't know about that, Benji..."

"Well I don't care what you 'know' about it," his brother retorted. "I wanna see him. I...I gotta see him."

Lionel's mouth twitched with uncertainty. "Benji..."

"Hey," Benjamin told him impatiently, his eyes narrowed and grave. "You can't tell me you wouldn't wanna meet _your_ real dad if you could. Bad idea or not, he lives two doors down. You really think I'm s'posed to just diddle around in there and _never_ meet him?"

Lionel let out a defeated sigh and glanced at his feet. "Okay. I just...ya know...you need to be careful."

Benjamin scoffed, and said a little more bitterly than he meant to: "Well, he's neutered and in a wheelchair, so I think I can handle it."

Lionel balked. "What? Neutered? Like...like..."

Benjamin shrugged helplessly. "That's what I heard Ma say. Happened to him in prison."

Lionel grimaced, a shiver visibly taking over his body. "Shit."

"Yeah..." Benji kicked at a rock in the dust and let out a sigh. His gaze slipped tentatively to the house they were standing in front of, and his breath caught in his throat as he realized it was the very house his aunt had indicated as his father's. When he'd left the house, he'd only meant to get away as quickly as possible and then figure out where his father lived. But here he was, in front of the only yellow house on the block. He stared at it, searching for some hint or suggestion of the man who lived inside, but it was aggravatingly mum on details. The yard was just as scorched as all the other yards on the street; the siding could use a fresh coat of paint, but was several years from peeling off into destitution.

"Let me come with you," Lionel said.

Benjamin's head jerked up, and he started to tell his brother that he didn't want him to come...but he just couldn't say the words. When he looked into Lionel's desperate, sky-colored eyes, he realized two things. The first was that Benjamin was actually about to live a moment that Lionel must have dreamed about his entire life. Lionel had always known Dave wasn't his father. He'd always known his real father was someone he'd never get to meet. But how he must have dreamt, for years and years, of meeting the man responsible for him. What wild, outlandish fantasies he must have entertained, fueled on the vain hope that he might someday get to see Oliver Willoughby in the flesh. And he realized he couldn't send Lionel away during this moment. Lionel had to be there to witness it, if only to know such a thing could happen in real life.

The second thing he realized was that Lionel, broad and handsome though he was, was something of an oaf, and absolutely couldn't sneak back into Tamsin's house without their mother noticing.

He stared into his brother's eyes a moment longer, and nodded his head. He watched Lionel's face lghit in a relieved smile for a moment before letting his gaze drift back to the house they were standing in front of.

"I think this is it," he told his brother softly.

Lionel glanced at it, and then up and down the street, and agreed. "It's the only yellow house on the block." As if Benji wouldn't have noticed a thing like that by now.

He took a breath, and found himself creeping down the walk and up the porch steps, even though he had no reason to be creeping. He heard his brother's heavy footsteps behind him, but never did glance back. The thought occurred to him to say a prayer about ten seconds after he'd already knocked on the door. He heard footsteps from within, and the anxiety in him quieted for a moment; his father was in a wheelchair, and he wasn't going to be looking at the man just yet.

He heard someone struggling with the lock, and then the door swung open. His wide, expectant eyes collided headlong with a middle-aged woman. She stared back at him, a thoughtful frown on her face, and stepped aside to let them in before he could even tell her why they were there. He saw - or imagined he saw - recognition in her eyes.

She shouted something in a language he didn't recognize, and gestured for them to follow her down a hall. Muffled through walls, he heard a man's voice shouting something back in the same language, and his stomach knotted up within him. His heart was pounding too loud for him to notice the sound of a radio playing, and a gentle shove from Lionel reminded him that he had to keep walking.

The woman led them to a cramped little study. A fan worked half-heartedly at pushing the air around, and the windows were open to invite any manner of breeze inside. The radio was turned up, and a British voice was delivering urgent news about the war; a wheelchair faced away from them, and Benji could just make out the chin and the sliver of a man's face as he leaned it against his hand on the arm of the chair. Even over the volume of the radio, he must have heard them walk in, because he leaned around to shoot them a glare for intruding. The sneer slipped from his face and fell to the floor.

The woman muttered some chiding little retort as she lumbered past his chair and turned off the radio, but he ignored her. Benjamin couldn't read the expression on his face. And he couldn't stop staring at his eyes and his nose and his lips and his ears. He wasn't even aware of the shocked way Lionel kept looking between them, his mouth gaping for something to say, and thinking better of it.

A kind of smirk found its way back into Beni Gabor's mouth again. "Hello, Benjamin."

Benjamin swallowed hard, planting his feet to keep his legs from shaking. "You know who I am?"

Beni snickered, and Benjamin got the impression he was amused by his accent. "Of course I do." He raised his eyebrows. "Do you know who I am?"

Benjamin nodded slowly. "You're Beni Gabor."

"Yes." He eyed him with something like expectation.

"You're my father."

Beni's face split in a yellowed grin, and Benjamin found himself staring at the gold teeth there, right in the front. Beni gave a nod into the room.

"Sit down. This is hurting my neck."

Benjamin nodded and darted across the room to the nearest piece of furniture, a sofa not-quite across from Beni's wheelchair. Lionel joined him, and Beni watched him stride across the room with a kind of leering amusement on his face.

"Look at how you have grown, Lionel."

Lionel froze before he could take his seat, and whirled around to stare at Beni with wide eyes.

"You know me, too?"

Beni scoffed, picking up a carton of cigarettes from the end table beside him and drawing one out. "Oh, yes. I used to hold you while your mother got dressed, after I was finished with her." He found his lighter and lit the cigarette, breathing in the first drag. He seemed amused by the disgusted expression on Lionel's face. "Would you like a cigarette?"

Benjamin shifted his weight nervously. "Ma doesn't like it when I smoke - "

Beni laughed and held out the carton to him.

"Then I insist," he said. Benjamin pressed his lips together, and then took the carton with a shrug. He slipped a cigarette between his lips and took the lighter Beni offered. He pretended that the first drag was calming his nerves.

Beni watched him sit down again, a peculiar and studious kind of smile on his face. He was pleased the way people are always pleased when their children undeniably resemble them, and Benjamin found something both comforting and unnerving about the way this man, who was his father, kept looking him over.

"So your mother finally told you, eh?"

Benjamin shifted in his seat and took another anxious drag off the cigarette. "Well, not - not exactly - "

Beni's eyebrows rose, but he didn't look particularly surprised.

"I overheard her talkin' to my aunt," Benjamin explained quickly, before his father had a chance to ask.

Beni nodded, sitting up in interest. "So what did you hear?"

Benjamin shrugged stiffly, stooping over his cigarette and taking in quick little drags. He didn't know where to start. Everything he recalled from the conversation was bad, and he didn't really want to bring any of it up. He glanced up and said cautiously:

"Not as much as I'd like."

Beni scoffed and leaned back in the chair. "What do you want to know?" But before Benjamin had a chance to answer, he was grinning, trying not to laugh. He shouted something in that strange language, and that woman came back. He asked her something, and she turned and stared at Benjamin, and started chuckling to herself as well.

Benjamin frowned, self-conscious and confused. "What?"

Beni waved his had dismissively. "Nothing. You look like my father, the way you are sitting. I had to show Piri." He turned and said something else to her again, and she chuckled again, shaking her head as she walked away.

Benjamin watched her leave, a thoughtful frown on his face. "Is she your...?"

"Sister. Well," Beni shrugged, "half-sister. We do not have the same father, because like your mother, mine made her life as a whore."

Lionel crossed his arms over his chest and glared, clearly still bristling over the last thing Beni had said to him. " 'Cept yours pro'lly made a career of it."

Beni laughed. "And yours has not? I saw the ring your father gave her. She has done much better than my mother ever did."

Lionel got out of his seat, his hands clenched at his sides. "What's that s'posed to mean?"

Beni raised his eyebrows, a cajoling condescension lining his face. "You mean she did not tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

Beni eyed him cruelly. "The only reason she married your father was because her family was in debt. She would have married any rich old bastard, but yours was the one dumb enough to take her."

Lionel sucked in a deep breath, pointing at him accusingly. "That's a lie."

"It's not."

"My father was a good man."

Beni snickered, taking another easy drag from his cigarette. "I suppose as long as you are not talking about his work in bed, that is true."

Lionel's eyes narrowed. "Well at least _he's_ still got his balls."

The corner of Beni's mouth twitched. He glared back at Lionel for a moment before telling him evenly, "I think by now they have rotted with the rest of him."

Lionel huffed, whirling around to stare at his brother. "I ain't stayin' with this son've a bitch any longer. I'd think you'd be about done with 'im, too. Listen to 'im talk about Ma like that..."

Benjamin stared back up at him in desperation, painfully aware of the jeering way Beni was watching them.

"Oh," he said, mean as ever, "but Lionel, your mother did not lie to you the way she lied to Benjamin about his father."

"It's with good reason she did," Lionel retorted, giving his brother one last glance. "You can stay if you want to. But I'm leavin'."

Benjamin gazed up at him and begged, "Just _please_ be quiet goin' back in - "

Lionel muttered something about being quiet and stormed out of the room. Benjamin watched him go, and for a moment he sat there in silence with this man, under the tired whir of a ceiling fan. For a moment there was only the sound of the fan and the steady drags his father was taking on what was left of his cigarette. Benjamin turned and looked back at him.

"How did you meet my mother?" he asked.

For barely a second, Beni looked surprised that Benjamin had resumed their previous conversation without acknowledging Lionel's sudden exit. But then he smiled and told him, "At a New Year's Eve party. I was an interrogator for the British at the time. She wanted to 'thank' me for finding the men who killed her husband."

Benjamin blinked. "By 'thank,' you mean..."

"I told you," he sneered, "she was a whore."

Benjamin pressed his lips together thoughtfully, snuffing his cigarette into an ashtray nearby. "Was that when I, uh..."

Beni scoffed. "Not much of a head for numbers, eh? No, Christmas Boy, that happened around Easter sometime - "

Benjamin's eyes snapped up in surprise. "You know my birthday?"

His father offered him a stiff shrug. "It is an easy one to remember."

Benjamin nodded his head slowly, staring down at his hands in his lap. He had a thousand questions and he didn't know how to ask a single one. It was more than obvious that Beni was still bitter at his mother - or maybe just at life and the world and everything in general - and Benjamin supposed he had every right to be. He wasn't sure how old his father was, but he got the impression he was younger than he looked. He was so very thin, and he had a face and body worn down by hardship. Benjamin hadn't been one to miss that he only had seven fingers between his two hands, or the ridged scar around his head. He'd noticed after a few stares that one of his eyes was glass. Life hadn't been kind to Beni Gabor; it was as if for years on end, he'd been slowly devoured alive by every conceivable hardship. Benjamin found himself wondering if his father's life would have been better had he been a part of it. And he found himself wondering if his own life would have been worse.

He looked up into Beni's eyes, and asked him quietly, "Why didn't you marry my mother? Why didn't you claim me?"

Beni blinked, and he stared back at him with a perplexed look on his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by a loud noise from the other room, and then the angry, determined footsteps of heeled feet.

Benji couldn't say he was surprised to see his mother burst into the room, but he secretly cursed his brother's big, loud feet just the same. Be quiet going in, his ass -

"What on earth are you doing here, Benjamin?" she demanded, doing her very best to focus on him in spite of the distracted way she kept glancing at Beni.

"He came to visit me," Beni told her, smug and amused. She shot him a glare.

"I'll be getting to_ you_ in a moment."

He let out a scoff and found himself another cigarette. "I am petrified."

She raised an eyebrow. "Look at you, expanding your vocabulary."

Beni's eyes narrowed. "Fuck you, Jemima. I can speak nine languages."

"Knowing how to say one word nine different ways doesn't_ quite_ constitute having a wide vocabulary."

"What if it was nine different ways of telling you to suck my - "

"I came here for my son," she cut in sharply, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. She turned briskly to Benji, jerking her head at the doorway. "We're leaving now."

He swallowed hard, edging a few glances at his father. He was trying to come up with the right way to tell her he wasn't ready to leave just yet. But Beni wasn't interested in telling her anything the "right way" at all.

"He is not going anywhere. After keeping him from me for years, you will take him away now?"

She whirled around and glared at him. "As a matter of fact, yes!"

His mouth twisted contemptuously. "When did you become such a bitch? You were never so cruel when we were fucking." He smirked. "You were actually quite accommodating..."

Her lips twitched, and she glared at him. "What is the matter with you, speaking that way to me?"

He threw her glare back in her face petulantly, pointing an accusatory finger at her. "What is the matter with _you?_ You come storming into my house and start shouting at me. Are you just drunk, or have you _actually_ turned into an American?"

Jemima shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. "You know, Beni...Benji meeting you is one thing; but you telling Lionel that I only married his father for his money is quite another."

Beni sniffed. "Perhaps I only wanted some time alone with my son."

"Then ask for some privacy like a normal person. For heaven's sake!"

Benjamin watched them, uncomfortable but fascinated, and he tried not to make any sudden movements or sounds for fear they might remember that he was there listening to everything. He didn't want to get dragged back to his aunt's house. He wanted to stay...even though he was rapidly finding out just how unpleasant of a person his father was. He wanted to stay, and he wanted to know. He didn't want these things hidden away from him any longer, like he was stupid and innocent. He wanted know.

Beni crossed his arms over his chest and stared hard at Jemima. "Fine. I am sorry I told Lionel you whored yourself out to his father."

She pursed her lips, her teeth clicking as if doing their damndest to keep every horrible thing she wanted to say to him in check. She suddenly glanced past him, her glare no less severe even when she turned her attention to her son.

"Come on, Benji."

"He's talking with me," Beni said, whiny and insistent.

Jemima pretended to ignore him and straightened her shoulders. Her brow had furrowed with an urgent kind of expression. "Your father just got back."

"His father is right here."

She sucked in a deep breath and turned back to Beni again. "Stop it," she told him. "Stop! Do you think that I've forgotten, for even a _sliver_ of a second, that he's your son? Do you? I've been staring you in the face for seventeen years! Believe me, there's_ no_ forgetting."

Beni eyed her suspiciously. "Uh-huh. And_ when_, since I am always on your mind anyway, were you going to tell him about me?"

Benjamin swallowed hard, and stared at his mother in expectation. She wasn't facing him, but he could see the side of her face and he watched it intently, anxious and desperate for her reaction. He saw her swallow nervously, and glance away from Beni's hard, leering gaze. He saw her as she was for maybe the first time, as another person instead of his mother, who'd been young once. Who'd made decisions out of passion and fear, and who hadn't even noticed she'd gotten older since she made them. She'd taken each day as it went, and he wasn't nearly as upset as he might have been to see that she didn't have an answer for Beni. Because he knew that someday, surely, she had meant to tell him. Someday, even if she didn't know when. Even if it wasn't supposed to be this soon. Someday -

"I don't know," she murmured.

Beni's eyes narrowed. "What's that?"

She met his glare evenly. "I don't know, Beni. I didn't...I suppose..."

Beni raised his eyebrows, and he stared at her, mouth gaping with an exaggerated kind of incredulousness. "Surely you do not mean you would _never_ tell him?"

Benjamin glanced at his mother again. He expected her to snap that of course she was going to tell him. That someday, she'd always planned to...But Jemima stood there in silence again, more uncomfortable than ever, shifting her weight in her heels and never quite glancing back at him.

Benjamin felt as if he'd been hit in the face. It was all he could do just to stare back at her when at last she did look up into his eyes. It was all he could do to see how sorry she was. But he had to look away.

Beni's mean, taunting voice added insult to injury. "Really? You were not going to tell him? Not ever?"

"People do it all the time," she said under her breath. She stood up a little straighter and squared her shoulders. "And you aren't his father."

Beni scoffed. "Oh, come_ on,_ Jemima. Anyone can tell I am his father - "

Jemima shook her head. "You've never done a thing for him. David has loved him and raised him. He has David's name."

"It does not work that way."

Her eyes narrowed at him, but something in her face looked too desperate and too determined. "It_ does_ work that way."

Beni leaned on the arm of his wheelchair and brought his cigarette to his lips. He stared at her with a kind of dark and petty amusement lining his face. Benjamin suddenly didn't doubt that he used to be a torturer.

"And how much would your precious rich husband love him if he knew Benjamin was my son?"

Jemima tensed. She stared at him for probably a full minute before startling, as if she'd come out of a dream. She glanced back at Benjamin. She assured him, "He'd love him the same. He'd love you just the same, darling - "

Beni let out a loud, "Ha."

She turned back to him, hopeless and pleading. "It's me he wouldn't love. I'm the one. Surely you can see that. It's me - "

"Of course it is," Beni threw back at her darkly. "It always _was_ about you."

Jemima let out a frustrated, powerless sigh. She stared at him with wide, glazed eyes. "What do you want, Beni? What is it you want from me? Money? I'll pay you, you goddamned _insufferable_ little bastard! I'll pay you anything at all!"

Benjamin was too shocked to feel anything. He'd never seen his mother so upset. He'd never heard her swear, that he could recall, either. Cautiously he glanced at Beni, who was finally too disconcerted to hurl back a smug, bristling retort. He stared up at Jemima and she stared back at him. For a moment Benjamin saw, or imagined he saw, something pass like a ghost between them. The tattered shreds of a memory, perhaps or something...something that had laid buried deep inside both of them; a sort of affection for one another they'd never fully released. But then that smirk crawled back up his father's face, and Benjamin couldn't be certain he'd ever seen such an emotion in the man's eyes at all.

"Jemima," he said in a tone that was false and sweet, "after all we have been through, you will ask me a question like that?"

Her hand flexed on the shoulder strap of her purse.

He nodded towards Benjamin. "My son has returned to me, all on his own, _after all of these years,_ and you would ask me to stay away from him?"

Jemima raised her eyebrows. "How much?"

Benjamin watched his father and held his breath. But Beni didn't even bat an eye in his direction, and met her gaze. "A quarter."

She scoffed. "A quarter of what?"

"Of what do you think, Mrs. Oil Tycoon? A million."

Jemima stared coolly back at him with half-lidded eyes. "How exactly do you propose I move that kind of money around without my husband noticing?"

Beni offered her a sarcastic smile. "My dear...you will think of something. You always do, don't you?" His eyes glinted, dark and cruel. "I would daresay, even, that there is nothing you do better than taking large sums of money from men."

She stood tall and gazed at him. "Do you know, I really did care about you. I thought you were very fascinating, and clever, and I was attracted to you, too. Nobody ever believed it, but I was."

Beni took a final drag from his cigarette and snuffed it in the ashtray on his table. He looked almost bored in his bitterness, as if it was so much a part of him that he'd forgotten there was any other way to function. "That is very sweet, Jemima."

"You don't believe me. You never did."

He scoffed, staring up at her incredulously. "Forgive me if I still think it was cruel of you to fuck that American behind my back so that you could pass off my son as his."

Benjamin felt a sudden sharp pain at his words, and an exhilarating anger started pounding through his whole body. He stared at his mother in shock and hurt and animosity. But she didn't even glance at him. All of her energy was focused in a furious stare at Beni Gabor.

_"What_ would you have me do, Beni?" she demanded. "You were married! And while I'm sure Nigel Carnahan would have personally funded a _very_ expensive abortion - clean knife and all - the truth of the matter was, I didn't want to live that way anymore. Now I'm very sorry for everything that's happened to you, but _you_ can't make me feel guilty over this. You didn't want to be a father then, and you don't want to be one now. Quarter of a million dollars to never see your son again! What kind of person are you?"

Beni looked past her to Benjamin, as if just noticing him there on the couch. But something about the keen, cold look in his eyes told Benjamin that he hadn't forgotten him through that whole conversation, not at all. He stared at him with some distant, vacant kind of emotion that Benjamin couldn't read at all.

"You are keeping me quiet with a quarter of a million dollars," Beni said slowly, never taking his eyes off of Benjamin. "But what about him?"

Jemima glanced back at her son, startled and perhaps even outraged by the suggestion that Benjamin would betray her secret. But when she looked into his eyes, her face became pale.

"Go on, son," Beni said in that self-amused sneer. "Ask her anything, up to half of her kingdom, and it shall be yours."

Benjamin gnawed on his lip thoughtfully, distracted for a moment by his surprise at Beni quoting the Bible just then. He would have pegged his father for the sort of person who'd never even picked up a Bible.

There was so much he didn't know about his father. There was so much he didn't know about where he came from.

He stared steadily at his mother. "I just want...I wanna be able to see him."

She let out a sigh. "Benji, you don't know the sort of man he is..."

"I know that," he said pointedly.

Jemima gazed back at him. "And if I arrange that, you'll not breathe a word of it to your...to David?"

Benjamin nodded his head. Her shoulders slumped, and she let out a sigh. He thought she looked defeated, standing there in the middle of the room, and the way she flexed her legs made him think she was tired of being on her feet.

"Alright," she said at last. "But it's time to leave now. It's getting dark, and he's been expecting us."

Benjamin nodded and stood up. He crossed the room to Beni's wheelchair and held out his hand, trying not to look squeamish at the strange and claw-like grip he took with his remaining fingers.

"You will come back and visit me like a good boy, won't you, Benji?"

All Benjamin could do was nod, staring into his father's smirking face, because just then a strange sense took him and he wasn't so sure he_ did_ want to see Beni Gabor again. He found something chilling and lifeless about the man's eyes, something that told him that a hundred visits with his father would cause him to like him a hundred times less...and that maybe he, like his mother, should shoulder his new secret and go on living a lie.

Beni released his hand, and something about the way he let go - or perhaps the way his hand reached readily for that carton of cigarettes as soon as he let go - told Benjamin that as long as his mother delivered on that $250,000, Beni Gabor really didn't mind if he never saw him again.

He followed his mother down the hall and out of the house. They broke into the growing darkness of the evening, and his mother took hurried steps away from the house until she reached the sidewalk. She glanced at Benjamin, walking beside her.

"Whatever you want to know about him, I'll tell you," she said quickly. "Anything at all, and I swear I won't spare any details. If I know it, I'll tell you."

Benji frowned curiously. She stopped, turning to stare at him with wide, urgent eyes.

"Just _please_, don't go and visit that dreadful man again."

Benjamin stared back at her. He didn't know what to say. The set of her mouth softened a little, and she suddenly took him in her arms, holding him very close in the chill of dusk. He felt her body trembling, and knew she was crying.

"I'm so sorry," she told him. "I'm so terribly sorry that man's your father. I never wanted him to be..."

She held him out at arm's length and looked him very seriously, very desperately in the eye.

"David's been a good father to you, hasn't he? He's been a _real_ father - "

Benjamin ran his tongue over his lips, and said calmly, "But he_ isn't_ my real father."

She sniffed, blinking the tears out of her eyes. "Yes. I know."

Benji sighed, staring down at his shoes on the sidewalk. "Just wish you wouldn'ta made it out like he was. Wish you would'ta lied to me."

She nodded her head, giving his arm a squeeze before letting hers drop to her side.

"I don't know what to say to you, Benjamin," she said after a moment. "I'm sorry. I did the best that I could. And I love you so very much. I've always been happy I had you."

He pressed his lips together, and started walking again. She kept up with him, step for step.

"I feel like there's this whole half 'a me that's missin'," he said. "I feel like...like I don't know nothin' about myself. He called his sister in to look at me, and they said I looked like his dad - and, and Ma, all I could think was, 'I don't know nothin' about myself.' I don't know my grandpa's name, or how many aunts and uncles I got. I don't even know what language they was speakin', you know? That's half 'a what I am and I don't even know what it is."

Jemima stared at the sidewalk. They'd come to Tamsin's house, and the lights from inside pooled over them and all around them. They stood there, with the knowledge that David Daniels was inside waiting for them to come, waiting for them to step back into the lie again. Benjamin felt like an actor standing just behind the curtain, waiting to make something real on stage.

"Well, they were probably speaking Hungarian," she said awkwardly, after just a little too long. She glanced up at the front door, and took a breath. "But let's talk about this later, alright?"

Benjamin nodded his head, and they started down the walk and up the porch steps. As her hand twisted the doorknob, she added, "Just promise me you'll never grow a mustache like that."

Benji started to laugh, but David Daniels' impatient, inquiring voice silenced him where he stood:

"Like what?"

He watched his mother glance up at Dave, eyes bright and twinkling, and tell him playfully, "Why, like Adolf Hitler, of course."

She waltzed in and kissed him, and twittered an apology about their lateness, making up some excuse about some thing, and Benjamin watched her in the doorway, his body frozen and removed and cold. He realized suddenly how long this had been a part of his mother's life, hiding this lie. He realized how smoothly, how naturally she covered it, like that cowlick in the back of her hair she perpetually patted down. He saw his mother for what she was, and -

"Son, you just gonna stand there lettin' flies in or what?"

Benjamin stepped inside quickly and shut the door.


	5. but it ain't me you're lookin' for

**_Author's Note._**_ Are you ready? Are you ready for the EPIC CONCLUSION? Honestly, I was kinda/sorta dreading this chapter, because I just wasn't sure how to handle certain events that obviously had to happen. I just had to dive in and see what became of it, and this is it._

_And it's another long one. I apologize. Perhaps the subject matter wasn't meant for a 5-part? I don't know. But I think it worked out. As always thanks for following, reading, and reviewing! Feedback is always marvelous, and I appreciate you all humoring my further endeavor into this universe, even though it's fairly far-removed from the movie._

**_Disclaimer. _**_The characters of _The Mummy_ are the property of Universal Studios. The title and chapter titles are taken from the song "It Ain't Me, Babe" by Johnny Cash (because what could be more fitting than a Johnny Cash song for the Americans?), originally written by Bob Dylan. The ranch and setting take a heavy cue from the film _Giant_. As far as I know, Blackbird, Texas is a town of my own invention. _

* * *

**IT AIN'T ME, BABE**

* * *

**but it ain't me you're lookin' for.**

_Lucas Dewitter Suits and Tailoring: Cairo, Egypt, 1941_

"Jemima?"

She hadn't heard that voice in years, and the cautious, polite tone sent a chill up her spine. Jemima took a deep breath and turned away from examining her son's suit sleeve, following the curious gazes of the people around her.

There she was behind her, lovely and dignified the way age sometimes does to beautiful women. There she was with her glittering hazel eyes and an uncertain smile on her face, like perhaps she'd debated approaching her for a while.

Jemima tried to smile. "Hello, Evelyn. It's been a while."

Evelyn breathed a sigh of something like relief, and a smile touched her eyes. "Yes, it certainly has. You're looking well. Is this Lionel?"

Jemima smiled, giving his sleeve a little tug. "Yes. We're having one of Ollie's suits fitted for him. Mary was such a dear to bring it for him. You remember Ollie's sister, don't you? Mary Westhausen?"

Evelyn smiled, glancing at the severe, older woman sitting on a chair nearby.

"Of course. How are you, Mary?"

Mary let out a laborious sigh. "I must say I've been better, what with the Germans bombing us all to smithereens back home."

Evelyn's smile faded, and Jemima glanced down awkwardly. "Yes. It's dreadful, isn't it?"

An awkward silence fell between and around them; Evelyn shifted her weight like she might start to walk away, and Jemima was ready to let her, but then -

"Ma, they don't got any with the pink stripe like you want, but there's this one in the red. Is that close enough?"

Jemima didn't even look at the tie in Benjamin's hand; she barely glanced at him at all. She heard Evelyn suck in a deep breath, and watched her trembling lips go pale. She stared at Benjamin for much longer than was proper, her mouth gaping for something to say.

Benji frowned at her in confusion, glancing over to his mother for help.

"Evelyn, this is my son Benjamin."

She forced her best smile and tried to blink away the startled look on her face. "Of course it is. Hello, Benjamin."

"Benji, this is Mrs...?"

"O'Connell," Evelyn jumped in readily, before any slips might be made.

Mary frowned, somehow managing to appear even more stern than usual. "As I recall, it was Gabor."

Evelyn was so startled, she took a half-step back and turned her wide eyes to Mary emphatically.

"No," she said with almost a trace of harshness. "Not in some time."

Mary feigned ignorance. "But it _was_ Gabor once, wasn't it? I'm not mistaken..."

"No," Evelyn said, straightening her shoulders. "You're not. But that's been over for some time. Surely you heard."

Mary shrugged and gave her a trifling wave of her hand. "Well. I can hardly keep all of that sort of activity straight. Your generation trades husbands like playing cards."

Evelyn's eyes narrowed, and the two women stared at one another evenly while Jemima struggled for something to say, and the boys looked on, too perplexed to be amused.

"It's been a pleasure, Mrs. Westhausen," Evelyn managed to say at last. "But I'm afraid I've a few more errands to run. Good day to all of you."

Jemima swallowed hard, and before she could stop herself, she said, "Let me walk you out. I've been wanting to have a cigarette, anyway."

Evelyn nodded, not even attempting to smile, and Jemima had to walk very quickly to keep up with her hurried steps over to the counter. She demanded something about Jonathan's suit in a terse tone, and let out an exasperated sigh when the clerk hurried away to the back of the store. She cast a dark glance back where Mary was sitting, and huffed.

"What a dreadful old shrew."

Jemima gazed at her apologetically. "I'm so very sorry about her. There's a good reason I haven't visited her or any of those Willoughbys in the last several years."

Evelyn sighed, glancing at the desk the clerk had just vacated. "They always were an imperious lot."

"Yes. All except for Ollie."

Evelyn nodded her head slowly, her eyes meandering back in the direction they had come. "Lionel looks just like him."

Jemima smiled nervously, waiting for it. When Evelyn didn't say anything more, she leaned a little closer and said pointedly:

"And I know you're thinking the very same thing about Benjamin, looking just like..._him."_

Evelyn blinked, startled. "I wasn't going to say anything about it..."

"There's no use in that."

Evelyn glanced around and lowered her voice. "I already knew he was Beni's. I just didn't expect..."

Jemima nodded her head. "It's been like seeing a ghost, every day, since he was born."

Evelyn looked up at her with some kind of unreadable but empathetic emotion in her eyes, and her lips trembled with a want for words she never had a chance to say. The clerk arrived with the suit, and she offered him a smile.

"I'm sorry I was so beastly earlier," she told him, taking the suit. She turned back to Jemima with a kind of uncertain, helpless smile on her face, and nodded towards the door. "Were you still having that cigarette?"

"Yes. Would you like one?"

Evelyn shook her head. "I don't smoke. But...but I'll stand out there with you a moment...if you like."

Jemima nodded. "I would like that."

They stepped out in the bright, oppressive heat of the late morning, and Jemima's hands shook as she fished out her carton of cigarettes and a lighter from her purse. Evelyn stood there holding the suit, trying to find a way to keep it off of the dusty ground even though it was zipped into a traveling bag.

"I'm terribly...terribly sorry, Evelyn," she said quietly, her voice quivering with the first drag of smoke. " If it helps at all, my life has been a ruin...just an absolute ruin..."

Evelyn stared at her with wide, pitying eyes. "Why on earth would that help?"

Jemima swallowed hard. "I shouldn't have done it. He was your husband. I shouldn't have done it."

Evelyn shrugged stiffly. "Well. It's done now. It's been done for nearly twenty years."

Jemima's eyes closed, and she nodded her head slowly, her mouth jerking against something that might have been a sob, though her eyes were dry when she opened them again.

"Benji knows now...and Lionel, too, and probably everyone here in Egypt..." She glanced up at her desperately. "Oh, Evelyn! How will I ever keep it from David now? What will I do when he finds out?"

Evelyn swallowed hard and shifted her weight.

"Benji's met him," she whispered quickly. "Just the other day. I can't very well keep it up now. I can't ask Benjamin to..." She choked back a sob, shaking her head. She stared into Evelyn's eyes with an urgent, desperate emotion. "He's a good boy. He's not at all like him. I mean, we've had our rough patches with him, of course...it's how boys are..."

Evelyn smiled a little, nodding her head knowingly. "Tell me about it."

Jemima's mouth twitched with an almost grateful smile. "You have a son?"

"Oh, yes." Evelyn dug a picture out from her purse. "There's my Alex."

Jemima smiled at the handsome teenager in the picture. "He looks like Jonathan."

Evelyn nodded her head and breathed an exasperated but affectionate sigh, tucking the picture away again. "He gets into trouble like Jonathan, too."

Jemima sighed, glancing over her shoulder at the door. She bit her lip, and looked back at Evelyn frantically.

"He isn't like him," she said again so abruptly that it too Evelyn a moment to realize she was talking about Benjamin again, and not Alex. "He's kind...he really isn't like him at all..." She blinked, staring bravely up at the sky to keep her tears from ruining her mascara. "But he's also just _so_ like him, do you know what I mean? I can't hardly take it some days. Dave met him twice, you know, and sometimes I see him staring at Benji...sometimes I see him watching him, and I just have to hold my breath, because I'm sure - I say to myself, 'It's happened. He knows now.' I've been waiting seventeen years for David to realize it on his own. Every time he wants to have a talk in private, I think, 'This is it. He'll ask me about it now...' For seventeen years!"

The corner of Evelyn's mouth jerked with pity, and Jemima could tell she didn't know how to respond. At last she said in a tone that sounded self-conscious, "I'm so sorry."

Jemima sighed out a trail of smoke, and shook her head. "No. I'm sorry. This is positively mad of me, pouring all of this out onto you...I've done enough to you already, haven't I?"

Evelyn met her eyes and offered her a sad smile. She reached over and gave her arm a squeeze, and said after a moment, "I'm very sorry you've had to deal with this for so long."

Jemima glanced down at her shoes, and she felt Evelyn's hand drift away from her arm. She was vaguely aware of the awkward, anxious way Evelyn was shifting her weight, and the way her eyes kept darting towards the parking lot. It occurred to her that she should snuff out her cigarette and tell Evelyn she needed to go back inside - that she should save Evelyn from having to make up an excuse for leaving her when she was clearly such a mess. But she couldn't bring herself to say anything, and the last tired bit of the cigarette burnt her fingers.

"I'm sorry," Evelyn said. "Um, I've got to get this suit to Jonathan, and - "

"Of course," Jemima said as breezily as she could. She looked up and gave her a half-hearted smile. "It was so nice seeing you again, Evelyn."

Evelyn nodded, and stole away. The expression on her face lingered in Jemima's memory for some time afterward. She would have expected something like smug satisfaction, knowing the woman who'd formerly scandalized her family was now living with the unpleasant consequences of her actions. She could have accepted an expression like that. She could have even accepted some false, forced pity - a valiant if strained attempt to be the bigger person. But Evelyn looked at her with a kind of nervous fear, the way people look at someone who's not right in the head.

Jemima didn't know how to handle someone looking at her that way.

For a moment longer Jemima stood there outside the tailor. But the weight of the heat and the sun eventually forced her back inside. All of them were waiting for her to eye the suit and make sure it was going to fit Lionel the way he wanted, and she ran a dazed eye over it before agreeing that it looked alright to her. Lionel went back to the dressing room and put his clothes on, and they left the suit with the tailor. She was only vaguely aware of Mary assuring her for the hundredth time that they'd be so much happier they'd gone to Lucas Dewitter instead of having the alterations done back home; _Just wait and see, dear. No one does work like Lucas Dewitter. You'll never even know it was an old suit - _

Jemima did her best to look interested and ushered them all back to the car. As she drove back down many familiar roads and out to the Willoughby House, she felt like a person in a dream. She hadn't returned to Cairo since the day she left with David, taking that little steamer up the Nile and then on...and on...and on. She hadn't returned to Cairo. Not until now. And she hadn't missed it either.

She never would have come back, honestly. She had nothing and no one there. Nothing and no one...except the Willoughby House, more or less. Mostly less. The house had sat vacant after she moved, and she supposed there had been the usual squabbling among the Willoughby clan over whom should get it. Lawyers likely got involved. Stalemates ensued. The regular, boring, ghastly Willoughby behavior. And that was probably why, some agonizing seventeen years later, it had finally been entrusted to Ollie's younger sister, Mary Westhausen, who promptly decided she wanted to sell it. Mary was a Willoughby _par excellence_, and she'd hated Jemima from the very moment she'd first flitted her then only blue eyes in Ollie's direction and flashed him a coy wink. She'd put up a loud fight over the engagement, telling everyone, everywhere that Jemima was nothing but a gold-digging opportunist, and she didn't belong in the family. She said she wouldn't attend the wedding, and she didn't. That was basically the way things were left between Jemima and Mary.

So when a letter arrived a couple months ago from Mary, addressed to Jemima, she actually assumed it must be from someone else. She'd held up the letter to David; _Isn't this funny? I used to _know_ a Mary Westhausen! She was positively horrid, darling. _And then she'd opened the letter and gasped. Mary had once sworn she'd never speak to her again. Well, actually she'd sworn it a few times. But eventually the threat stuck. Anyway, Jemima hadn't anticipated hearing much from any of the Willoughby clan in general, and certainly never dreamed of getting a letter from Mary.

The message was fairly clear and simple. It told her that she'd acquired Ollie's house, and that she was going to sell it at the end of March, but that there were several things of value belonging to Oliver that she felt needed to be passed down to Lionel. She invited Jemima to bring her family to Cairo, _because I think Lionel might enjoy the opportunity to see his father's house._ There was a lot of mention of Lionel, and Jemima was on her guard, from the moment she introduced Mary to him at the docks.

When they pulled up to the house, Jemima noticed that the car David had insisted on hauling across the ocean with them (_Can't drive on the wrong side 'a the car like that, Jem_) was parked out in front. She pulled in next to it, and the four of them hurried into the cool relief of the house.

David was sitting in the parlor with Betsy. They were laughing about some thing or another; probably a memory from back home. One thing was certain: neither David nor Betsy had any use for Egypt. One would think they'd be at least a little accustomed to heat and wind and nothingness, being from that grim stretch of Texas, but neither of them could take a foot outside without being utterly miserable in the sweltering sunlight. Betsy had no interest in a shop that only sold men's clothes, and David figured Jemima could handle the situations with the tailor on her own, and so they'd stayed behind.

Benji had been avoiding David for the past three days, ever since he'd met Beni Gabor, and he'd jumped at the opportunity to be out with his mother instead of nervously guarding his new secret in his father's presence. Ordinarily he wouldn't have had any interest in Lionel getting a suit tailored at all.

"How'd it go?" David asked.

Jemima sighed, dropping into the nearest seat and taking off her hat. "Quite well, I think. They shouldn't have to take it in much. What's that you're drinking there?"

David held up the glass of whiskey and frowned. "What else?"

She let out another sigh, and a lazy smile stretched across her face. "I would positively adore a mint julep..."

David jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. "If you want I can go get that butler to make one."

Jemima gave him a bright, playful smile, and he got out of his seat. She turned her attention to Betsy and frowned. "Are you having tea?"

Betsy's hands flexed nervously on her teacup, and she sputtered, "Uh - yeah - "

Jemima's brow furrowed incredulously, and she motioned for her to bring the cup over. With a sigh, Betsy crossed the room and surrendered the cup. Jemima sniffed it, and glanced up at her daughter in disapproval.

"Did your father let you have this?"

Betsy stuck her hands on her hips, all Daniels. "Well, Ma, I_ am_ sixteen years old! And it's just _one_ little ol' drink - "

Jemima raised her eyebrows. "It isn't even noon yet."

"Well you're havin' a mint julep."

Jemima scoffed. "Let me tell_ you_ something, young lady. When you've had three children right in a row, and have to deal with three teenagers all doing extraordinarily stupid things at once, you can have mint juleps for breakfast, and I'll not say a word. I'll fix them for you myself."

Betsy let out a long sigh and rolled her eyes before trudging back to her seat on the couch. Benji had already sat down in the spot next to hers. His back was stiff and straight but his fingers were tapping anxiously against his knees. Betsy raised her eyebrows at him.

"You have too much coffee or somethin'?"

He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. "Yeah, maybe."

Just then Mary let out a loud sigh, probably only to remind them all that she was still there. She found a seat in the chair next to Benji and settled herself into it primly. Lionel gave Betsy a nudge and sat down beside her, squeezing the three of them on the one, spindly sofa. Jemima giggled to see them lined up like that, all of them hers but so very unlike her. She saw instead a Little Ollie, a Little Naomi, and, regrettably, a Little Beni...and the thought twisted sad and painful inside of her. She suddenly imagined, or tried to imagine, Beni at seventeen years old. What he would have been wearing, where he might have been sleeping, what he might have been eating. All of it was certainly so much less that what Benjamin had. She suddenly remembered a piece of an article she'd read...or perhaps a whisper of a conversation they'd once had...about how he'd been arrested for the first time when he was sixteen years old. Sixteen. She looked at Benji and for only a brief, painful moment tried to imagine him trapped in a jail cell with terrible and unsettling people. She gasped back a breath and shoved the thought as far away as she could.

"This'll do ya?" David's voice broke through the haze in her mind, and she glanced up at him and the drink happily. She took it from his hand as he sat down, and then remembered Betsy's teacup.

She eyed him sternly. "Did you give Betsy some whiskey?"

His gaze jumped across the room to his daughter. "I told you to be careful with that!"

"Well, Dad, she knows I don't drink tea - "

David shook his head at her, the glimmer of a joke in his eye even though his mouth was set in a grave expression. "Well now _I'm_ in trouble. And _you're_ in trouble if I'm in trouble."

"Jeeze, Dad," she muttered. She attempted to lean back in her seat, but her brothers were crowding it. She nudged them both with her elbows. "Can't ya'll find somewhere else to sit?"

"Here," Mary offered in a voice that sounded more than vaguely offended. "Take mine."

She stood up and started towards the dining room. Jemima sucked in a breath and decided she might as well try to be polite. "Oh, where are you off to, Mary?"

Mary straightened, her nose in the air. "It seems your family is only interested in engaging itself right now. I know when I'm not wanted."

Jemima let out a sigh and pulled herself out of the chair, actively fighting the urge to roll her eyes like her teenaged daughter had a moment ago. "Mary - "

She followed Mary's short, bustling form out of the room and through the dining room; despite Mary's shorter legs and age, she was remarkably hard for Jemima to keep up with. She didn't stop until she'd made her way into the kitchen, where she ordered one of the temporary house servants she'd brought with her to fix up a cup of tea. Jemima crossed her arms over her chest and stared down at Mary in a manner she hoped wasn't as impatient as she was feeling.

"What's the matter?"

Mary sniffed, somehow managing to stare down her nose at Jemima despite being several inches shorter.

"Stop treating me like a fool, Jemima," she said, her voice dropping all pretenses of politeness. She eyed Jemima with hard, gray eyes.

Jemima raised her eyebrows, perplexed. "I'm sorry?"

Mary shook her head, a disgusted expression on her face. "This business with Lionel dressing like a cowboy - and talking like one, too! It's obscene. He's a _Willoughby,_ for heaven's sake. You've taken Lionel from his real family, and you've completely estranged him from them with this American nonsense. And I know exactly why."

Jemima blinked, straightening her shoulders airily. "You don't know anything about me. Not a single thing."

Mary's eyes narrowed, calculating. "I know why you married that American buffoon, and why you haven't shown your face in Egypt more than twice in the past seventeen years. And so does anyone else with a decent memory and the most elementary mind for numbers." She leaned forward before Jemima's bewildered mind could contrive an inncoent answer and said, "Believe me, I'm not the only one who can tell who that son of yours _really_ belongs to."

Jemima pressed her lips together, staring back at her sister-in-law steadily. "Is that what this was all about?"

"I've suspected it for years."

Jemima's expression was unmoved. "Well, that's an ugly rumor, and it's entirely untrue. But even if it was, I don't see what business it could possibly be of yours."

Mary scoffed, her hard little glare flashing back, undeterred. "You think you're dreadfully clever, but you're not. You might have been more careful when you decided to go and play the slut to that piece of Bohunk gutter trash."

Jemima refused to flinch away from her gaze, smug and glinting though it was, and straightened her posture to stand just a little bit taller over her. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Mary pointed up at her accusingly. "You've taken Lionel from his family. You've turned him into an American and given him absolutely no sense of who he is and where he really comes from. And I wanted to tell you, personally, that he'll not be finding his way into Oxford. Not over my dead body."

Jemima's mouth twitched, and she stared hard into Mary's mean, gray eyes. She stared at her, and shook her head in disgust. "You know, Mary, if you've missed him so terribly, you oughtn't punish him for something I've done. But if you must, you might find yourself dreadfully disappointed when no one even notices. There are universities in America, too."

Mary let out a condescending little laugh, fluttering a hand dismissively.

"There are," Jemima said pointedly. "Oxford isn't the only place one can go."

"It's the only place a _Willoughby_ goes."

"Evidently not."

Mary raised her eyebrows, tilting her head to the side. She gazed up at Jemima, her mouth twisted with suspicion. "Of course, one might wonder what Lionel's doing here with us at all. He's at a ripe age for conscription, is he not?"

Jemima's face went pale, and she glanced away. She could feel Mary eyeing her.

"All of Britain's boys are on the front."

She stared down at her feet and refused to take Mary's bait.

"Has he not been drafted yet?"

Jemima took a breath, and the words fled her mouth in irritation: "He's not a British citizen anymore."

Mary shook her head, her eyes glinting cruel and disgusted. "You little coward."

Her gaze flew up to Mary's angrily. "The war has nothing to do with him! Am I supposed to let them drag him back to Britain to die for a country he's never even been to?"

Mary just kept shaking her head, that horrid expression on her face. At last she took the cup of tea the servant had prepared for her, and sauntered out of the kitchen, threw the door that let onto the library. Jemima closed her eyes, and took a shaking breath. She wanted to cry and didn't want to cry; she reached her hand up to her face and rubbed that aching spot between her eyebrows. She never should have come. She should have told Mary she could ship Oliver's things. She already had the address...

"Can I get you some water?" the servant said after an awkward moment.

Jemima nodded her head. "And an aspirin."

She didn't know what Mary was plotting, and she didn't really want to think about it, either. Most likely, knowing Mary, she wasn't plotting anything at all. She just enjoyed the satisfaction of telling Jemima she knew all of her secrets. Jemima supposed the Willoughbys keeping Lionel out of Oxford was something of a disappointment, but she would just as soon he attended university in the States, anyway. Assuming the Americans didn't also get dragged into this bloody war, he might have a better go at school in the U.S., anyway...

She set her empty glass down on the counter and thanked the servant for his kindness and discretion. She imagined she felt better as she left the kitchen and found her way back to the parlor. The sound of her children arguing made her smile and roll her eyes at the same time.

"It ain't a centaur, Betsy!"

"It is so! I remember it. I learned it in Mr. Twogood's class - "

"Well, you weren't payin' attention, 'cause it_ ain't_ a centaur."

"Then what is it, Lionel, since you're so smart?"

She found the three of them craning their necks at the ceiling, and stifled a laugh.

"I don't remember," Lionel muttered. "I just know it ain't a centaur."

"Oh, you_ know_ that?"

"It ain't. Centaur's the one with the horse body and man...like...half 'a man's body..."

"Lionel, I don't even buy that's a real thing."

"Well, 'course it's not a real thing, stupid. It's mythology."

"You know what I mean. And don't call me stupid."

Jemima breathed a sigh, stepping into the room and glancing up at the ceiling.

"It's a minotaur," she said, settling it. "It's Theseus and the minotaur."

Lionel and Betsy started to squabble over who was right, or who was close to right, or who wasn't right just because he knew it wasn't a centaur, and Jemima chuckled as she found her seat next to David and got that first sip of her mint julep at last. She turned to share a warm and amused glance with her husband, but David's face was set in an expression she'd never seen before. And everything within her went cold.

He was staring at Benjamin, too focused on the ceiling to really notice the scrutiny. He was staring at him on that sofa, sitting in such a way, looking in such a way. And she saw what David was seeing, just exactly. She saw a rather unpleasant dinner party ages ago in this very room, and a rather unpleasant guest who'd been on that sofa, sitting in such a way, looking in such a way.

She saw it. He saw it.

David turned to her suddenly with that dreadfully unreadable expression on his face. Something like suspicion. Something like shock. Something like bewilderment and disbelief. He turned and stared at her and she had nothing else to do but stare back at him. She had nothing else to do, but to stare and to ask very weakly, _What is it, darling?_ But the words never made it to her lips.

She knew. She knew what it was.

His brow furrowed up, asked a question. She bit her lip, and stared back, sorry.

So, so, so, so, so sorry.

David got up off of the sofa and strode out of the room. Jemima didn't even have a chance to take a breath. She rushed after him. He stormed out the front door and would have let it shut in her face, but she caught it just in time. She slipped out after him and tugged it shut, praying the children took it as a clear sign that they weren't welcome in this conversation. He started fiercely down the porch steps.

"David!"

He didn't turn around until she lunged for his elbow and made him. He'd exchanged that unreadable emotion for anger by the time he whirled around to look her in the eye.

"Did I see somethin'?"

She blinked.

" 'Cause I think I just saw somethin', and you sure as hell ain't givin' me much room for doubt."

"David - "

He planted his feet on the ground, squared his shoulders, and stared up at her. "Is Benji mine?"

Jemima glanced down, and tried to swallow the dryness in her throat. He was out with it like that. Well, of course he would be. David never did beat around the -

"Is Benji mine?" he said again, impatient.

She stared at her shoes on the porch step, a cheery mint against the dust-dirtied white wood. She told her shoes the truth, "No."

"No," he scoffed under his breath. She heard him kick at something on the ground, and then it was silent. She was deafened by the pounding roar of blood in her ears, and had to glance up.

He wasn't looking at her. He was staring at something far off in the horizon. But she could see the disgusted betrayal on his face. She could imagine the pulsing, red anger that had rendered him utterly speechless where he stood.

"I'm sorry," she told him, too weakly. Maybe not weakly enough. The words didn't feel genuine as they fell from her lips, even though they were. Oh, they were.

He scoffed again, shaking his head at that place he was staring at. He spat in the dust.

And then at last he looked up at her again. "I married you because _you_ were pregnant. 'Cause it was the right thing to do."

"I know..."

"I ain't a man to shirk that kind 'a responsibility," he said, his glare boring into her. "I_ told_ you that. And what was the _one thing_ I asked you when you told me you were in trouble?"

She swallowed hard. "I know..."

"What was the _one_ thing? I said, 'Honey, I don't wanna embarrass you or nothin', but are you _sure_ it's mine?' And you said, 'Yes.' That's what you said. And I said, 'Okay, honey, let's make it honest.' _That's_ what I said."

Jemima closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to run down her cheeks. She nodded her head numbly, and mumbled again, "I know." She knew. She knew all of it. She'd been trapped in the vivid, guilty memory for years.

He kept glaring at her, piercing and intense. "That's all I said. I never asked you again. I put up with all the shit folks gave me and all of it, 'cause _you said_ he was mine. 'Son don't look much like ya, Dave.' 'Get a good look at the milkman, Dave?' For seventeen goddamn fuckin' years! And I put up with it, _'cause you said_ he was mine!"

She glanced up and winced at the severity of his furious expression. She took a shaking step back up to the next stair.

"I broke off marrying Cara Lee for you, and I was in love with her!" he shouted.

Despite the guilt that had thusfar paralyzed Jemima in place, her mouth twitched, and her glare shot up to his. Just the same, her voice trembled more than she would have liked it to: "Oh? Really? Were you in love with her? I never would have guessed from the half dozen trips to Houston you've taken over the last year!"

David's eyes burned hard and earnest. "Hey! I am _not_ sleepin' with her."

"Oh, aren't you?" she said, half-lidded and incredulous.

"No!" he shouted, and she knew from the look in his eyes that he was telling her the truth. "But right now you're makin' me wish I had been!"

Jemima straightened her shoulders. "I suppose_ that_ would make it better, somehow."

David's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, I'm real sorry you can't turn this fuckin' mess back on me."

Jemima's jaw tightened, and she glanced away. She could feel him staring at her, shaking his head in disgusted disbelief.

"Christ, how do you sleep at night?"

She huffed a little sigh.

"No, I'm serious," he said. "How do you dare get in bed with me, night after night, and go to sleep?"

Jemima pressed her lips together. She couldn't look at him for the weight of her own shame and guilt. God, how had she? How had this once been nothing but an inconvenient and nagging little secret? Here, in this moment, it was so much more than anything she could shoulder on her own. So much bloody more. She started to stammer a response, something rote she'd been telling herself for years. _It was for the best...it was the only thing I could have done - _

"Whose is he?" David demanded before she had a chance to say the words floundering on her lips. He pointed at her, or maybe the house, accusing a memory he could see just before his eyes. "It was that...that little weasel fella you just_ had_ to have over some night - "

"Major Gabor," she told him quietly, too frightened and ashamed to admit his first name was Beni.

David scoffed. He repeated it like the punchline of a joke, "Major Gabor." He shook his head, tracing back over an evening he'd thought he'd forgotten about entirely. He shook his head, and the longer the silence stretched between them, the uglier his disgust became. He glanced up at Jemima and said in a voice that was too bitter to be malicious, "Got his dad's good looks, didn't he?"

"Please don't..."

"His charm, too."

Jemima's gaze jumped up to his, alive and hurt. "Don't say that. Benjamin's nothing like him - "

David raised his eyebrows incredulously. "Well. You'll have ta forgive me if he's just a little_ too_ like him for me to abide this shit."

Her lip trembled. "What are you saying?"

He shook his head. He glared at the dust on the horizon again.

"You can't mean to throw us out - "

His eyes jumped back to hers, hard and angry. "Oh, 'can't' I?"

She gazed back at him with wide, pleading eyes. "We've built a life together, David! We have a daughter - we've been married seventeen years - !"

"Look," he cut in darkly, holding his hands up. "I ain't sure what I wanna do yet. But you're in no position to tell me what I can and can't do."

Jemima glanced at her feet again, and nodded her head. She'd always been sure, whenever this moment happened, that she would be sobbing uselessly. She thought she'd be perfectly pitiful, crying and begging for forgiveness. But now it had happened, and she just felt weary. She'd been sitting on the edge of her seat too long. She'd been drained so long ago...And while it hurt to see him hurt, betrayed and angry - while his words stung worse than she'd anticipated - she wasn't crying. The tears wouldn't come. She stood there staring at her shoes in the dust with dry eyes.

"So what's the story, then?" David said all the sudden, bitter and terse.

She glanced up in confusion. "What?"

He eyed her incredulously. "Ain't you gonna try and explain yourself? I mean, don't you think you _at least_ owe me some kind 'a explanation?"

Jemima sighed. She _was_ weary, in the sweltering heat. She was weary and empty for the first time in years. The secret had finally escaped her, and she didn't feel anything else locked up inside her. She knew while she didn't know, what David was asking. He wanted the details that she knew didn't matter. What difference did it make if she'd known all along that Benjamin wasn't his, or if at one time (before he was born) she hadn't been certain? What difference did it make if she'd once genuinely believed Benjamin was David's? None of it changed the fact that he _wasn't_ David's son. None of it could ever change that.

"How long did you know?" he asked, impatient and fed up with her. "Did you know the whole time?"

She didn't look up. "Yes."

"The _whole_ time?" he said again, his voice tightening up with anger. "You knew the whole time? 'Fore he was even born?"

She nodded her head.

"You tricked me into it," he said, not even bothering to make it a question. He knew the answer already. "Look at me."

Jemima took a deep breath, and glanced up cautiously.

"You tricked me into it."

She ran her tongue over her lips, and nodded her head.

His jaw tensed, and he muttered some curses she didn't quite hear. He shook his head at her, furious and disgusted as ever. "What was the deal? Your darlin' Major Gabor couldn't clean up after 'imself?"

Jemima swallowed, and said very quietly, "He was married."

David scoffed, glaring at her in utter disbelief. "Well aren't you just a piece 'a work. And I reckon he's still married, ain't he, goin' about his business here with the rest 'a Benji's brothers and sisters."

"No, he's - "

She clamped her mouth shut against the rest of her sentence, but it was too late. David raised his eyebrows in surprise before his eyes narrowed darkly.

"I take it you know what he's up to."

Jemima let out a little breath and attempted to shrug dismissively. "I haven't any idea what he's up to..."

His gaze leveled on her. "Now really ain't the time to try to keep up a lie."

She closed her eyes, and her shoulders slumped in defeat. "He's divorced..."

David huffed sarcastically, "Nice fella like that? What a shame."

Jemima tried not to glare. "He isn't well, David. You've nothing to take vengeance on. He's wasted away to practically nothing, and he's a ruin. Everyone despises him. He's bitter and alone and he's no one at all, except a sister who's probably only caring for him out of pity..."

The caustic and sardonic smirk hadn't quite fallen from David's lips. "And Benjamin, too, right?"

Her eyes widened. She shook her head. "Don't say that, darling, _please_. That man is no one to him - no one at all. _You've_ been Benjamin's father, can't you see that? You've been everything to him - "

"I _ain't_ his father, Jem!" David spat. "Christ, you think it's my job to raise him just 'cause his father's a bastard?"

Jemima huffed. "It's never bothered you that you're not Lionel's father. You've raised_ him."_

"That ain't even_ kinda_ the same thing, and you know it."

She swallowed hard. She was suddenly aware of the intense and oppressive heat of the early afternoon, and reached a hand up to push her hair out of her sweaty brow. It was hot and dreadful and her whole life and just fallen to pieces before her eyes, and there was nothing at all she could say to her husband. He stared hard at her a moment longer before starting up the steps.

"Come on."

Her brow furrowed. "Where are we going?"

"You're gonna tell Benji the truth."

Before she could stop herself, she sucked in a little gasp, and David stopped in his tracks. He turned and stared at her suspiciously. "What?"

She didn't see any kind way to say it. "He knows."

David's brow jerked up. "He_ knows?"_

"Yes."

"Since_ when?"_

Jemima stared back at him desperately. "Only for a few days. It happened quite by accident - he overheard me talking to my sister...I don't even know how it came up..."

David shook his head. "Unbelievable." He glared up at her, cloudy with anger. "You are_ unbelievable_, you know that? So he's in on it, too?"

"He isn't 'in on' anything!" she said, pleading. "He's just a child! It isn't_ his_ fault - "

David let out a scoff. He stared at the closed door thoughtfully, possibly remembering Benjamin in there with his siblings, looking so hopelessly like that grim and long-forgotten memory. He just kept shaking his head, like all of this was so much more than he could possibly comprehend. Like everything in his life had shattered before his eyes.

And it had, she realized. Just as much as it had shattered for her. Just as much as it had shattered for Benji. Their lives were broken into a thousand awful pieces on the porch steps, and they could never fit together again. Jemima imagined trying to pick up the pieces, only to have them slip through her fingers like sand. That life never was. The foundation was hollow, and it had collapsed in on itself at last. And there she stood in the midst of the rubble, under the angry and disbelieving glare of a man she'd been lying to for much too long.

Much too long.

Without a word, he turned around and started back down the steps, taking a gruff hold of her arm. He dragged her with him into the dust and the heat, towards his car.

"Where are we going?"

"You're gonna take me to this Major Gabor. You seem to be all caught up on where he is in life. I trust you know where he's keepin' his sorry ass."

Jemima shook her head, glancing back at the house desperately. "David, it's a three-hour drive to Alexandria! Over!"

"I don't care if it's a hundred-hour drive."

"It's lunchtime - the children - "

"Kids are more'n half-grown," he retorted, shoving her towards the passenger side and throwing open the driver's door. "If they ain't figured out how to feed themselves by now, maybe it's time we let 'em be so they can work that shit out."

Jemima huffed and threw her door open, too. She settled in her seat and stared at him with wide eyes. "So we're just leaving? We're not telling a soul where we're going?"

David glared back at her, hard and stubborn. "You can get out and tell 'em, but I'll leave without ya. You don't think I can find this som'bitch on my own, you got another thing comin'."

Her mouth twitched uncertainly. And then she sighed and closed the car door. She didn't want to be taking this trip at all, but she certainly couldn't let David go by himself. She couldn't possibly spend all day pacing about that big, haunting house under Mary's eye. She regretted that her children were trapped in there with her, but apparently there was no reasoning with David on that matter. She supposed the house_ was_ big enough for them to find ways of occupying themselves...

David sped down the long, bumpy roads between Cairo and Alexandria at breakneck pace. Jemima spent most of the ride braced in her seat for the collision she was certain would happen. They didn't speak. Every now and then she'd glance to see if the hard, dark glare had left her husband's face, but he was unmoved as a statue. Less than three hours passed in a dizzying whir, faster than they'd ever passed in her life, and much too soon Alexandria rose up on the horizon before them. Much too soon he was flipping turns through the narrow streets, shooting her impatient glances that demanded direction. Her reluctant mumbles wound them back to Tamsin's neighborhood. Back to the yellow house. He threw the car into park and they stopped with a jolt.

Jemima turned and gazed at him plaintively. "Don't do this, David..."

He sniffed, squinting up at the house in the afternoon sun.

"Please," she said. "I don't know what you're expecting...or what you're hoping for...but it won't be what you want."

He willfully ignored her and pushed open his door, heaving his stiff body out of the car. Out of options, Jemima followed after him. He strode right up to the front door and knocked without a moment's deliberation. The seconds they stood there waiting for someone to answer the door passed slower than the entire car ride from the Willoughby House in Cairo.

At last the lock jingled, and the door creaked open. Beni's sister frowned up at them, and didn't glance away when she yelled something into the house. Beni's voice drifted from somewhere nearby.

"You have got it already, my dear?"

Jemima sucked in a breath, but David didn't even waste a suspicious glare at her. He shoved past the woman and stormed into the house. Jemima tried to apologize to Beni's sister for David, but she doubted her efforts made much of a difference. The woman didn't seem to speak English, and, seeing as how Jemima had stormed into the house in a similar manner only a few nights ago, an apology wouldn't have seemed sincere, anyway. She slipped past the woman and hurried after her husband, coming to an abrupt stop in the parlor where Beni was taking his coffee.

The two men stared at one another, David's still set in that grim scowl, and Beni's eyes wide and startled and preemptively pathetic. He sputtered some kind of nervous greeting that didn't sound remotely innocent, and his eyes kept darting over to Jemima, suspicious and betrayed. Through the whole house and all around them was the heavy, spicy aroma of something bubbling in the kitchen, making Jemima suddenly aware of how hungry she was.

"W-what brings you all the way out here?" Beni asked with a forced smile.

David crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, Gabor, what've got to say for yourself?"

Beni gulped, his eyes still darting between Jemima and her husband. "I do not know what you are talking about, my friend, and I must apologize for any confusion - "

"You can shut your smarmy mouth right there, you slippery little bastard."

The grin Beni had plastered on his face dampened, and now he stared desperately at Jemima.

"I know all about you and my wife," David told him darkly. "And I wanna know what you got to say for yourself."

Beni edged a nervous glance at David, his lip wrinkled up distastefully. He likely couldn't help how flippant he sounded when he managed to say, "Nothing...?"

David's eyes narrowed. "Nothin'. Now ain't that a surprise."

Beni ran his tongue over his lips. He eyed Jemima for a thoughtful moment, and she saw the calculating little thoughts clicking together in his head. She saw them, and she expected it when he put his coffee cup down and stared up at David sorrowfully.

"What is there to say, my friend? I was as deceived as you were by this woman."

Jemima sucked in a breath. If he was expecting protection from her with this plan of his went awry, he was burning all the wrong bridges.

David stared back at him suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

Beni held up his hands, his shoulders rising in a helpless shrug. "What was I to do? She told me that she cared for me, and that I was the only man in her bed and _then_ - not a week later, I find out she has been playing the whore to you, and all to cover up a baby I knew nothing about."

A strange look came over David's face, and he watched Beni a moment longer, measuring the earnestness of his woeful gaze. He pursed his lips thoughtfully, and turned his attention to Jemima.

"Is that how it went, Jem?"

Beni pretended to look surprised. "She did not tell you?"

But David was ignoring him, staring hard at Jemima. She let out a sigh, gazing back at him hopelessly. "I didn't know what else to do - "

David's face fell in bewilderment for barely a moment before anger picked it up again. "What in the hell kind 'a bullshit is that?!"

Her throat jerked anxiously. "I had a son to think of - "

Beni let out a loud, wistful sigh. "You see how deceiving she is..."

Her gaze flashed to his impatiently. "It's 'deceptive.'"

"Well if anyone would know, it is you." He turned back to David with a face full of pity and regret. "I am so sorry, _barat'm_. She needed somebody to blame it on, and you happened to be the richest."

Jemima's jaw dropped. Her hands balled into tight fists at her sides, and it took everything within her not to storm across the room and punch him square in the jaw. Wheelchair or no, saying such a thing was way out of line, and it wasn't fair of him to put her in that position with her husband. Her eyes turned wildly to David, and she cringed to see his face, pallid with something like pain. Something that certainly _was_ pain, though he was ordinarily too stubborn to show it. They stared at one another in silence.

"Is that all I am?" he asked her in the stillness of the afternoon, in the heaviness of spicy air.

"No," she breathed desperately.

Beni pretended to be confused. "But that is what you said to me, was it not? I asked why not the smart one, and you said - "

"Stop it."

" - 'I decided to go with the richest instead.'" He chuckled nonchalantly. "You will have to forgive me; it has been a few years. Please, correct me if I am wrong."

Jemima closed her eyes before she could see what was certainly a pained expression on David's face. She couldn't bear to see it. She turned and glared at Beni's smug, self-satisfied leer.

"I suppose you made the right choice," Beni said. "A smarter man might have figured out he wasn't the boy's father much sooner."

David's glare snapped over to Beni, and the insufferable smirk fled his face. Beni gulped nervously, and his hands slipped to either side of the chair, taking hold of the wheel spindles in case he needed to retreat. David crossed the room in a few determined strides and scowled into his face.

"Look here, Gabor," he said in a quiet, threatening voice. "I don't know what happened to you to put you in that chair, but I already got half a mind to take you out of it for good, you get me?"

Beni's throat jerked, and he nodded his head.

"Give me a reason," David told him. He took a step back, but his glare didn't waver. "Just give me a reason."

Beni winced, and reached a shaking hand for his coffee. David heaved a sigh, turning back to Jemima. His eyebrows were raised incredulous, but his mouth was firmly set in a disgusted expression.

"I was sloppy seconds to _this_ yellow-bellied fucker?"

Jemima took a breath. She stared, hopeless and alone, into David's eyes, desperate for some shred of the normalcy they'd shared only a few days prior.

"Darling, please...it was so long ago..."

She took a step towards him. "I love you. You must know that..." He glanced down at the floor. She blinked away the tears that had come at last. "You _must_ know that, David..."

He stared hard a his shoes and shook his head.

"Don't you love me?" she asked. "Don't you love me back, at all?"

He breathed a sigh that looked like it pained him.

"I thought I did," he mumbled after a while. "I don't know anymore." He finally glanced back up at her, and for the first time in hours, his eyes weren't burning with rage. Just the same, he told her, "I'm so angry, Jem. I'm just so angry."

"I know," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

David sighed again, reaching a hand up to scratch the back of his head. "It's gonna take a lot 'a work to get past this."

Jemima had to bite back a gasp. She told herself not to let the flow of relief wash over it, but she could only stave it off to a trickle. She stared at him, her mouth itching to smile.

"You'd like to work it out?" she whispered.

He nodded his head. And Beni made a show of being impressed, reminding them both that he was still there watching from his wheelchair.

"Oh, how beautiful!" he said, too sweetly. "What an inspiration you are to all married people! This!" he said, raising a finger at them, _"This_ is the kind of warm-hearted compassion that makes American great."

Jemima's eyes narrowed at him in disdain. "You know, just because you're incapable of forgiveness doesn't mean everyone else is."

He met her gaze with a kind of challenging smirk. He said innocently, "You are right. It would not in my nature to forgive my wife for opening her legs to another man, even if he _was_ the father of her child..."

David raised his head and turned to stare at Jemima in shock. That terrible fury had returned full force in his eyes.

"But I am not so _kind_ and_ forgiving_ as your Mr. Daniels."

"Beni, shut up!" Jemima yelled at last, her voice shaking with anger. "God! You'll not be happy until I'm every bit as miserable as you, will you?"

He met her glare with grim and vacant eyes. "You will never be as miserable as I am."

She hated him desperately in that moment, with his eyes and his soft, haunted voice. She hated him desperately, because there, even though she despised him, she felt sorry for him. For a moment she saw a young Beni cowering in a prison cell, looking like Benjamin in tattered clothes and sunken cheeks. She saw him there, defenseless and afraid, a wretched child on a wretched track to becoming an even more wretched man. She hated him because there was no rescuing him now. He was horrible and pathetic and mean, what was left of him. God, she hated him.

The door slammed shut and broke her out of her reverie, and she turned to see that David had left the room. Her eyes widened, and she raced out of the house after him, down to the car. She caught a hold of his elbow and dragged him to a stop.

"Please don't listen to him!" she begged. "He's just trying to ruin things between us! He just wants to ruin everything - "

"His name's Beni," David spat at the dust. He looked at her with hardened eyes. "You really do think I'm stupid, don'tcha? Go and name him Benjamin, after some made-up uncle."

"I _do_ have an Uncle Benjamin - "

_"Bullshit,_ Jem!" he shouted. "Ya know, you must not think he's so bad, namin' the kid after him - "

Jemima shook her head. "Darling, I didn't - I can explain it - "

"I don't give a damn, Jem," he threw back. "I'm done and over with givin' a damn."

"Please!" she said, grasping hold of his arm tighter. "I was an utter fool, and there's nothing on earth I can do to repay it. But I love you, David. I love you."

"Don't tell me you love me, crawlin' back to that bastard after we was already married."

"I love you," she said again. "Now I know it was wrong, but look at us. We've been married seventeen years - we have a child together - Darling, please. Darling, I'm so very sorry. Don't you think we at least owe one another a second chance? An honest chance?"

David stared back at her, his mouth twisting thoughtfully. At last he said, "I don't owe you nothin'."

Jemima closed her eyes against the tears. She looked down, and her hand loosened on his arm. She heard him let out a sigh.

"But I reckon we owe it to Betsy," he said, almost emotionless. He looked up at her, studying her with severity and suspicion. He looked at her in a way she was afraid he might always look at her, from now on. "I'm gonna keep takin' them trips to Houston. And you ain't gonna say a word about it."

She pressed her lips together, and nodded her head.

He glanced up and down the street, and sighed. "Any place good to eat 'round here? I'm starvin'."

Jemima swallowed hard, blinking away her confusion. "I can think of a place, if you'd like to go."

David kind of snorted, and opened his car door. "I could eat a horse."

He didn't get her door for her, but as she walked around and got in on her side, a new and fierce determination took a hold of Jemima Daniels: the very thing, perhaps, that had propelled her through a life she so far felt as though she'd only survived. He hadn't kicked her out. And he hadn't even uttered the word divorce. And dismal though her new arrangement was, she took heart. The clawing grip of her secret had finally released her, and she felt free and light.

She'd win David back. Even from Cara Lee. She'd win him back.

And even if it killed her, she'd never think about Beni Gabor again.

**end.**


End file.
